


Forgotten Avengers: Book 6

by Agent Finlay (AgentFinlay), AgentFinlay



Series: Forgotten Avengers: The Recovered Files of Skoll & Hati [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23336314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFinlay/pseuds/Agent%20Finlay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentFinlay/pseuds/AgentFinlay
Relationships: Steve Rogers/OC, bucky barnes/oc
Series: Forgotten Avengers: The Recovered Files of Skoll & Hati [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604899





	1. Again

****

**[Fin - 21:42 Feb 13th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

_Let me hold You - Josh Krajcik_

“Fin.” Elena whispered, I rolled to face her but didn’t open my eyes. Something buzzed and she whispered again. “Fin, your phone.” I peaked open an eye, realizing she was right. The buzz was my phone. In a moment of panic swelled in my chest as I realized the only person that would call me was Peggy...or someone calling about Peggy. I fell off the bed trying to reach it, only to realize from the floor that it had been text messages, not a call. The upside of my quick trip to the carpet, the fog of sleep was knocked off in a hurry. The texts were from Steve and I didn’t bother getting up before reading them.

_‘Can you come to my room? I started to come to you but I didn’t want to bother Elena.’_ So much for not bothering my roommate. I wasn’t sure what was going on but he didn’t usually text.

_‘Please. I can’t sleep.’_ Well this couldn’t be good. I got to my feet, wrapping my blanket around my shoulders and going to the door. 

“What’s going on?” Elena asked when she realized I was leaving.

“I’m not sure, Steve asked me to come see him.”

“Oh?” Her tone said she was less concerned than she was a moment ago, now that she realized it was just Steve asking me to his bedroom. 

“No. No ‘oh’.” I mimicked her tone and showed her the messages. 

“Oh.” This time she sounded like I felt. I took my phone back and replied that I was on my way as I walked into the hall. I tried to step softly and when I got to the door I raised my hand to knock before I remembered that I was supposed to be quiet and that he knew I was coming. I let myself in. 

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his phone and staring at his shield that was propped against the nightstand. That couldn’t be good. 

“Hey.” I whispered, walking over to him. He slid his arms around my waist and leaned his forehead against me, holding me tight as he exhaled. I put my arms around his shoulders, enveloping him in the blanket I'd dragged with me “Want to talk about it? It’s okay if you don’t”

“I can’t sleep...I think I'm just...nervous about the mission tomorrow.” He didn’t look up as he spoke and his voice was muffled.

“Which part? Maybe we can figure out something to make you more confident about it?”

“It’s not any part of the plan I'm worried about.” He moved his hands to my ribs, holding me still but not as tightly as he had been before. 

“Then what?” 

“I’m worried about you.” I felt his shoulders tense under my hands as his thumb moved over the place on my side where a bullet had exited on our last op. “Everytime I close my eyes I just...I see you bleeding out.” Shit. Great job Fin, you’ve given Captain America PTSD...or...more PTSD. I took his hands off my waist and stepped back, pulling him to stand with me. I turned down the blanket on the bed and guided him to the edge. 

“Get in.” He opened his mouth to say something but I stopped him. “We’re not done talking, I just don’t want to stand here while you talk to my ribs all night. Come on.” He climbed in, leaning back against the pillows. I followed, positioning myself under one of his arms to rest my head on his shoulder as I draped my legs over his lap. He laid a hand on my calf, rubbing it absently and waiting for me to talk. 

“What can I do to make you less worried.” I asked, looking up at his face. 

“Stay home?” He suggested, already knowing my answer.

“Solid plan B. Try again.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” He kissed my forehead. 

“We’ve talked about this. I don’t want to get hurt, but it’s part of the job...Elena can put me back together, you’ve seen it first hand.” I didn’t mention the rest. I still wasn’t sure how to tell him I wasn’t sure I could die...I was still processing it myself. 

“Not if you're dead.” He argued, not looking me in the eye. I turned his head to face me. 

“I’ll walk it off.” I promised, kissing him lightly. 

“What if I hadn’t gotten to her fast enough last time?” his hand brushed a stray hair from my face as he spoke, his thumb moving on my cheek.

“She would have come to you.” I took his hand in mine and kissed his palm before pulling his arm around my waist and laying my head on his shoulder.

“But what if she was too late.”

“She wouldn’t be. Because she can’t be. It’s the unwritten rule of the universe.” I tried to reassure him. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Just...promise you’ll stay close tomorrow. To me or her.”

“Would that help you sleep?”

“Yes.” He squeezed me to his side.

“Then I promise.” We sat like that for a while, not saying anything. At some point I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember anything else until the alarm on my phone started going off.

  
  


**[Steve - 08:12 Feb 14th, 2015 - HYDRA BASE]**

I wasn’t sure if splitting up was the best plan, with the full teams we could clear the bases in half the time which meant in the long run we weren’t making anything more efficient by doing so. When Hill had insisted that the targets were both smaller than the last unshielded base we’d covered, everyone agreed to go in two teams. Tony, Barton, Nat and Thor on one team and Myself, Sam, Fin and Elena on the other. Bruce stayed back with Maria, who agreed that the hulk would likely be over kill in either of these situations. 

We breached the base without any trouble, the perimeter guard was only a handful of men who were taken out easily, which is why we were so taken by surprise when the first inner chamber was filled with guards. We didn’t hesitate, there wasn’t time to think about what to do. They raised weapons to fire and we dove into the fray swinging. I tried to keep Fin in my line of sight but it was chaos, as long as I knew she and Elena were in the room together I could give my full attention to our enemy. The room filled with the sounds of combat, grunts and screams, the occasional gunfire. The world was a blur. 

I felt a bullet graze my arm and it was enough to make me drop the shield, I didn’t have time to pick it up before a man leveled the barrel of his rifle at me. I froze, making eye contact with him and hoping I would have time to move, hoping he would be foolish enough to take a step closer so I could reach the barrel before he pulled the trigger. The room sounded quitier now and I wasn’t sure if it was the blood rushing in my ears or if the fight was over, I guess it didn’t really make a difference as long as this man was planning to shoot me. Suddenly his eyes went wide and I braced myself for the impact, expecting him to have gotten the nerve to squeeze the trigger. Instead his eyes rolled back and he fell forward onto the floor, a black handled tactical knife sticking out of his back. Fin stood where he had, her face covered in blood that I could tell wasn’t her own as she bent to pull the knife from him. She looked up at me as she straightened, smiling through the crimson spray staining her skin. 

“And you were worried about me?” She winked and handed my shield back to me before wiping the blade clean and walking to where Elena was already at a console. I shook my head in disbelief, after a night of worrying about her going into the field she’d just saved me from being shot. I was never going to hear the end of this.

Once Elena had collected any data and we’d made sure the building was cleared we called the other team to make sure they didn’t need back up. When Tony told us they were clear and headed home I made an impulsive decision, telling him we wouldn’t be back at the tower tonight. Instead we took the mini quinjet to Brooklyn, parking it clumsily in the hangar that had been intended for Coulson’s car ‘Lola’. 

Sam offered to take a car back to the tower, using the Data files as an excuse, but I suspected he wanted to give Fin and I some space, knowing I would feel obligated to include him otherwise. He wasn’t wrong, I'd been about to invite him out with us when he’d made the offer. He called Elena’s phone while he waited for the car to pick him up and I wondered if he was trying to convince her to come with him. I didn’t like the idea of Elena being unable to stay in her own bedroom for a change and I thought that may be what was happening when she walked down the stairs to the front door. Turns out I'd been worried about nothing, she came back up, a bouquet of flowers in her arm as she looked at a small card. 

“Who sent those?” I was suddenly glad we’d come here for the night. I didn’t think the flowers would have made it to the tower. 

“Doesn’t say.” She shrugged. “I appreciate the gesture though.” She took them into the kitchen, putting them in a vase. 

“I was thinking, while we’re here we could go to Frank’s.” I looked at Fin, her face still stained with splotches of red. “After we get cleaned up.” I added, reaching over to wipe some dried blood that she had missed from her cheek. 

“You two go.” Elena was still looking at the card from the flowers. “Go and have a nice night out. I”m going to stay in and enjoy the peace and quiet while I can.”

“Are you sure?” Fin asked. “I’ve never been to Frank’s Valentines party without you.”

“You’ve also never gone with a date.” Elena looked at me pointedly. 

  
  


**[Elena - 19:36 Feb 14th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

_Dress up and go to the Roof. 8:00_

I kept looking at the familiar neat handwriting like it was going to change. At some point Fin and Steve had left me alone and the last thing I remembered was over hearing Fin say something about Steve staying home on the next mission. I thought that was a snowball’s chance in hell but I didn’t know what they were talking about so I didn’t interrupt. Instead I showered, dressed, did my make up and made my way on to the roof. The freezing cold air pricked my skin and I started feeling a little ridiculous.

The feeling changed when I picked up his scent. 

James.

He’d been here, on this roof and recently. I followed the trail to a box tucked under the small outcropping where Fin liked to hide. I opened it and found a small heart shaped box of chocolates and a cheap plastic walkie talkie. 

“You found that faster than I expected.” His voice crackled over the speaker and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I realized he was somewhere he could see me. 

“Will I be rewarded with your presence for my efficiency?” I hoped. 

“No, I'm afraid not.” he sighed. “It’s too risky. There’s no good escape route up there if your friends come home early.”

“They won’t hurt you.” I stepped behind the wall that housed the roof access door and heard him shifting on the other end of the radio, trying to see me. I made a mental note of the blind spot.

“I know. But I'm not ready to face him. Not yet...I’m remembering who I was when he knew me, but I'm remembering a lot more. Things he wouldn’t understand.”

“You’d be surprised.” I moved again until I heard him adjusting his position, trying to see me.

“I’m sure I will be. But not today.”

“Hold that thought.” Based on where he’d lost me visually I was pretty sure I knew where he was. I went back into the house, digging out a pair of binoculars. When I came back up I hid them behind my back. “You’re sure you won’t come over?”

“I’m sure, Doll.”

“Well that’s not fair. You get to see me but I can’t see you?”

“Even if you could see me, you would be getting the short end on that deal...You look gorgeous.”

“Flattery helps, but I'd still rather see you.” I pulled out the binoculars, scanning the rooftops in the direction I suspected and catching the reflection from his lense. When he saw me looking he stood and waved. His hair had grown out and he had some stubble, he was wearing a zip up hoodie over a tee shirt and jeans and he looked good. I wanted to go to his roof if he wouldn’t come to mine but I suspected there were reasons other than Steve that he was wanting to keep his distance. Considering this was the closest I'd been to him in months, I would take what I could get. “I got your gift from the sanctuary.”

“Did you like it?” I heard the genuine concern in his voice. 

“Yes. Very much. Thank you.” I had a thought and it was out of my mouth before I'd had time to stop it. “Why did you come back here? To Brooklyn?” There was a long pause before he answered. 

“I missed a dead drop. I had to come get it.” Even from here I could see the sheepish grin on his face as he made the excuse. I didn’t care why he was here, I was just glad he was. 

  
  


**[Steve - 21:52 Feb 14th, 2015 - FRANK’S]**

_Again - Doris Day_

“I have something for you, if you want it.” 

She’d spoken quietly across the table and I almost hadn’t heard her. In my defense I was a little distracted, with everyone crammed into Frank’s I was getting warm and we’d only left the dance floor so I could lose my coat and tie. 

“You didn’t have to.” I smiled, rolling my sleeves to the elbow. 

“Don’t get too excited, it’s just...i’ve been holding onto it since july but with everything happening it slipped my mind. I forgot to bring them to the tower and...and that’s not important I guess.” She caught herself talking too much and shook her head, it bothered her more than it did me. I thought it was cute when she got nervous and didn’t know where to stop talking. 

“Well? What is it?” I hung my jacket on the back of her chair and pulled mine beside her as she took a sip of water before reaching up to undo her necklace. She pulled the chain and I watched patiently as she freed a set of dog tags from her cleavage, holding them out to me. 

“They’re yours, they were in a box...I wasn’t sure if you would even want them but…”

“I mean, I haven’t missed them...i haven’t had a reason to. Shield doesn’t really do dog tags.”

“True. But we aren’t shield anymore. I just thought that maybe…I know I need to be reminded why we do what we do and with everything... it might not hurt to have something to remind you where you started.” she shrugged. “If you don’t want them...”

“I didn’t say that.” I kept looking at the tags in my hand, running my thumb over the embossed numbers. They were warm from being under her dress, the chain was new but they were the tags I was issued when I enlisted. The tags I wore at Camp Leigh. The tags that were mine before I was Captain of anything. 

I put them on, tucking the tags under my shirt and getting back to my feet as a slow song started to play. 

“You cooled off enough for another dance?” I asked, holding my hand out to her. She smiled and let me lead her onto the dance floor. We disappeared into the crowd again, no one seeing us as anything other than two normal people as I pulled her close. She laid her head on my chest and I let the loose curls of her hair wrap around the fingers of my right hand as I ran them softly up the skin on the back of her neck. I kept the rest of her tucked under my left arm protectively and closed my eyes as we swayed to Doris Day, It felt like a dream. 

_‘Though I have prayed for a lifetime, that such as you would suddenly be mine. Mine to hold as I'm holding you now and yet never so near. Mine to have when the now and here disappear…’_

The music, the clothes. For a moment it was like nothing had changed. Like I was still that scrawny kid from Brooklyn and for once Buck had managed to find a dame to dance with me. I tried not to laugh out loud at the thought, I didn’t want Fin to move. I wanted to keep her right where she was. 

**[Bucky - 23:02 Feb 14th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

_If I could be with you - Doris day_

We talked for a while about nothing, She told me about taking out a Hydra bases and how close they’d been to catching me at Camp McCoy. I told her about the diner in Gallup and the waitress with the same name as Steve’s mother. We talked just to be talking and I enjoyed it, even though every note of her voice sent an inexplicable pang through my chest. It was strange, your subconscious having feelings that your conscious mind doesn't remember forming. I had started to remember things, about her and us, but nothing that explained why I felt wrong if I went too long without making sure she was alright. Coming back here was a dumb idea, the dead drop was an excuse that I told myself but part of me had needed to see her. 

“They’re coming back.” I saw them walking up the sidewalk, they were holding hands and the girl was wearing the little punk’s jacket. It made me smile “Steve and the girl. They’re walking up from a few blocks away, if you wanted to know.” The change in subject must have taken her off guard because it to her a moment to react

“Shit. I don’t want to go.” Her tone broke my heart and I didn’t know why.

“I don’t want you to go, but I'm not sure how you plan to explain sitting on a roof in an evening gown by yourself.”

“Well when you put it that way, it does sound incredibly depressing.” She laughed. “I guess I should go.”

“I should go too.”

“Stay...Just for a little while longer?” Shit. How was I supposed to say no to that?

“Alright Doll.”

I watched her go inside, noting the light in her room turning on as she entered, and was surprised when she opened the curtains. I watched her tuck the radio under her pillow before pulling some clothes hastily from a drawer. She hesitated, looking at a door to her right and back at the clothes in her hands before dropping them onto her bed. She turned her back to the window and untied the knot at the nape of her neck, when it was undone she shrugged her arms out of the loose sleeves and let the dress drop. It hung onto her hips for a moment but with a little wiggle of her hips the fabric hit the floor. Something warm filled my chest before sinking lower and I felt myself staring slack-jawed at what was unfolding. I wondered if she realized I could see her...but then why had she opened the curtains? She slid a loose t-shirt over her head before bending over to put on shorts and I found myself trying to memorize the way her skin peaked through the lace pattern of her panties. 

Her friends must have entered the apartment because she stood quickly and exited her bedroom. It had been a long time since I'd had this particular problem and I made some adjustments to my position, trying to make myself more comfortable while she talked to them. 

It didn’t take long for the nagging voices in my head to take advantage of the silence and start arguing again, telling me that I should have left the country while I'd had the chance. 

_‘You should have disappeared off the west coast and never looked back, should have stayed away from New York, from civilization, from her.'_

An unfamiliar voice, once buried so deep i didn't recognize it as my own.

_'Go to her, she wants it. Break into her room and fuck her, make her yours.'_

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it.

_'You aren’t safe here, she isn’t worth the risk.’_

Another voice, the one who cared for the blonde I was waiting on, pipped in. 

_‘You had to see her, you care for her and you know she cares for you. You’re safe with her. She’s the closest thing to home you have left.‘_

The voice wasn’t wrong, part of me felt safer here than I had in months, even though I knew it was the worst place I could be if I wanted to stay hidden from the people who were hunting me. More voices fought to be heard.

_‘You should have stayed away, just being here is putting her in danger. If anyone associates her with you they will kill her...or worse. What would you do if they got to her again?’_

_‘What about the others looking for you, the ones trying to save you from yourself? Steve is here, in the building you’re watching. Aren’t you hiding from him as much as anyone? Aren’t you afraid he will see you here? That he’ll see what you’ve done? What you’ve become?’_

_‘Why don’t you go to them? To your love and your best friend. They can protect you.’_

_‘Ha! Protect you? You’re a killer, a monster. She may be too blind to see what you really are but HE won’t be. He’d as soon spit on you as save you. You can’t stay here.’_

_‘James?’_ The voice was softer than the rest and I needed them to stop yelling so I could hear it.

_‘’Why are you still here? Run!’_

_‘You had to see her, had to!’_

_‘You’re putting her in danger!’_

_'She belongs to you, take her!'_

_‘They’re going to find you!’_

_‘He’s going to see you!_

_‘Hide! Go now!’_

_‘Run before they see!_

_“...James?”_

“SHUT UP!” The sound of my own voice shouting in my ears brought me out of my head, the voice that had been calling my name was coming out of the walkie.

“Are you still there?” Her voice sounded tentative, as though she wasn’t sure if I was going to answer. 

“I’m sorry. I'm here.” I hesitated, waiting for a response but growing impatient as the voices started up again. “You asked me to stay.” I smiled, happy to make her happy. 

“Can you talk to me? Just until I fall asleep.” She yawned and I watched her turn out her lights and crawl into bed. 

“Of course.” I bargained silently with the voices, promising they could keep yelling at me all they wanted after...but I needed this. 

‘ _She’s the closest thing to home you have left.‘_

_‘too blind to see what you really are.’_

_‘a killer, a monster’_

_'take her'_

_'They can protect you'_

_‘as soon spit on you as save you’_

_‘safe with her.’_

_‘putting her in danger.’_

_‘Can’t stay here.’_

  
  


**[Fin - 23:19 Feb 14th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

“Did you have a good time?” Elena stepped into the hall to greet us as Steve helped me out of his Jacket. 

“It was fun.” He hung his coat on the rack as he spoke. “It was nice to take Fin somewhere and not feel like we were sneaking around.”

“It was great!” I didn’t wait for the conversation to be over before I started to pull pins out of my hair to let it down. I loved the way updos looked but they started to hurt after a while. “They had the same band as...two, no three, years ago? Do you remember?”

“The one that did cover songs?” Elena had liked knowing the words to the songs for once and we’d taken turns trying to guess the song. 

“Yeah, that one. They were good and had some new stuff. How about you? Nice evening without ten people sharing a kitchen?” I laughed, I was so ready to leave Tony’s place.

“Oh, yeah. I just decided to read. Enjoy the quiet. I was about to doze off when I heard you two come in.” She seemed off when she answered, like she’d been up to something else and I realized she was wearing make up. Had she gone out while we were out? It wasn’t like her to hide things from me but I wasn’t about to call her out on it. Maybe she just wanted to fuck around with make up in her down time. 

“Well don’t let us stop you.” Steve spoke, still standing in the living room instead of following Fin into the hallway. “We’ll keep it down.” 

“Good night.” Elena looked between the two of us before shaking her head and going back into her room. The door closed behind her leaving me alone in the hallway, but I could feel Steve looking at me from the other room as the hair on my neck rose in anticipation. I bent at the waist to unbuckle my shoes, unnecessarily making the task more difficult for the added benefit of giving Steve a show. I slid them off and tossed them into my room before going back to the living room and turning off the overhead lights. I took my time walking to where Steve sat on the couch, illuminated by the floor lamp in the corner. I stood in front of him, enjoying the quiet moment as his eyes took everything in. He’d been looking at me all evening with an expression I could only describe as hunger. I wasn’t used to and at first I felt awkward under the scrutiny but now I found myself emboldened by it. 

“Hi.” I whispered, breaking his concentration. His eyes darted up to meet mine, his cheeks going pink at the realization he’d been caught staring. I stepped forward and placed my knees on either side of him on the couch, holding myself above his lap as I started to unbutton his dress shirt.

“Hi.” He smiled up at me, his fingers teasing the nylon covered skin at the edge of my skirt. I leaned forward, bringing my face to his long enough for a soft brush lips before pulling out of reach. “Fin...what are you doing.” It was quiet, not a question to get me to stop but a gentle reminder that we could get caught. 

“I haven’t decided yet…” I smiled, kissing him again. His hands slid up my legs until his thumb touched the garter clasps holding up my stockings. “You can help me take those off...if you want.” 

For a moment I thought I was falling and grabbed Steve’s shoulders to keep myself upright. I realized once I was hanging on to his neck that his arms were under my hips and he was standing in the living room, holding me with my knees on either side of his waist. 

“What are you doing?” I shifted my weight to be easier to balance. 

“I haven’t decided yet.” He grinned as he walked carefully down the hall to my room, pushing the door open with his hip before backing in. I closed it behind us before he turned, setting me gently onto the edge of the mattress before kneeling in front of me. He pushed up my skirt, just far enough to see the top of my stockings. He unhooked the first, rolling the thin nylon down over my knee and kissing the newly exposed skin. His mouth followed his hands as he uncovered the rest of my leg, the warmth of his lips leaving goosebumps in their wake. He repeated the process on the other leg, this time kissing a trail back up to my knee before pausing. I felt my heart in my throat waiting to see what he would do. I hadn’t been lying when I said I hadn't decided what I was doing, I didn’t know what I was doing or what I wanted him to do but I knew that I wanted him here with me. 

When I didn’t say anything to stop his progress he looked up at me, his blue eyes shaded under long eyelashes that shouldn’t be allowed on a man and my heart did a flip flop in my chest. He maintained eye contact as his hands went under my knees to wrap around my thighs, gripping my legs just hard enough for his fingertips to dimple the soft skin. He slid his hands up the outside of my legs, pushing my skirt higher and stopping before any part of me was exposed. Instead he slid his hands under the fabric to find the waist of my panties. I could feel his warm breath on the insides of my thighs as he maneuvered the fabric over my hips and down my legs, torturously slow. When he brought his hands back up he pulled me closer to the edge of the bed, his hands holding onto my hips as his mouth found the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. The feather light kisses had been replaced with the sensation of him sucking on the tender skin, his tongue tracing patterns as he left red suction marks trailing higher and higher up my leg. I felt his fingers brush between my legs and flinched as the memory of Dominic holding me down flashed across my face.

“I’m sorry.” I apologized as a gut reaction before I could stop myself. 

“It’s ok.” He leaned back, placing his hands on the mattress on either side of me. “We can stop, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to stop...I don’t want you to stop...I just...” I took a deep breath. I hadn’t wanted to stop a second ago and unlike the traumatic experience my brain insisted on bringing up right now, I actually did want Steve to touch me. “I’ve never had anyone...um…” I felt my face getting hot and couldn’t make myself say the words. 

“I thought you and Rollins?” He asked cautiously. We’d never discussed Jack before and he didn’t know about my last interaction with the asshole. 

“We um...he never…” Why was this so hard to talk about, the man’s face was between my legs you’d think talking about sex wouldn’t be so difficult. I took a deep breath and made myself look up at the ceiling, maybe it would be easier if I wasn’t looking at his face. “We had sex. Once, and there wasn’t anything you could call foreplay on his end so...this is all new.”

“We can slow down.” He offered again. “I’d like to avoid making you react like that again.”

“Shit. I’m sorry. That’s not your fault.” I fell back on the bed, covering my face. He crawled onto the bed beside me, propping himself up on one elbow. “I wasn’t expecting to be so jumpy about it.”

“It’s ok.” He pulled my hands from my face, holding them in his. 

“It’s not, and I want to tell you why but...I also don’t.” I squeezed his hand in mine. “If I tell you the part I think I can make myself actually say out loud...can you promise you won't ask me any questions.”

“No questions.” He nodded. I swallowed a few times, trying to muster the courage or find the words. 

“The last time someone touched me...like that...It wasn’t a situation that I was in control of.” I could tell by the look on his face that I didn’t need to elaborate, he didn’t need to ask questions. The tick in his clenched jaw told me that he would kill whoever did it if he could. “I killed them.” I added quickly. 

“Good.” He leaned over to kiss my forehead and I wrapped a hand around the back of his head, holding him there before leaning up to kiss his lips.

“I didn’t want them to...” I kept my eyes on his as I moved the hand I’d been holding down to my legs, laying his palm against my inner thigh. "I want you to."

“Fin…” I didn’t know if he was going to say we should stop or that he was sorry it happened, what I did know was that I wanted to erase the memory of Dom’s hands on me. 

“Please.” I craned my neck up to kiss him again and when I pulled back his lips followed mine. No more talking. His hand brushed against me and this time I opened my legs wider, encouraging him to keep going. He explored cautiously, slowly stroking his fingertips between my folds until i ached for more. “Please, Steve.” It was all the reassurance he needed. He pushed a finger into me, slowly moving in and out as he gauged my reaction. When I didn’t stop him he added a second digit, curling his fingers against my inner wall as he thrust, hitting parts of me that had me gasping. His thumb found my clit, brushing against it as his fingers moved inside me and building the heat between my legs as I felt myself coming closer and closer to climax. I knew what it felt like when I did it myself but this...this was different. I slid my hands in his unbuttoned shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin under my palms before reaching down to undo his belt. I reached into his pants, taking him in my hand and stroking, trying to match the pace of his fingers in me. He shifted his weight and I couldn't stop myself from crying out as the flat of his palm pressed against my clit, his fingers hitting all the right places as my hips involuntarily rocked against his hand. I could feel my breath catching with every stroke as the tension built, no longer able to hide the effect he was having on me. I heard a small squeak escape my throat, I’d been fighting against the desperate sounds wanting to escape me with Elena across the hall but the whimper of pleasure only encouraged Steve. I felt him curling his fingers against my inner walls as his palm stroked the sensitive nub trapped beneath it and my reserve broke. I bit into his shoulder to stifle the cry of euphoria as I came, squeezing the hot length of him twitching in my grasp as he found his own release in my hand. 

I watched my chest rise and fall as I tried to catch my breath, his own breathing ragged against the hollow of my throat. I turned my face to him and he met me halfway in a desperate kiss. 

“Are you ok?” He whispered, his eyes were concerned but his grin couldn't hide the cocksure smirk as he left a trail of kissed across my cheek.

“I am very Ok.” I exhaled with a grin to match his. 


	2. Casta Diva

**[Steve - 13:49 April 27th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

“Guys, I think we’ve got something...I mean REALLY got something. Look at this” Maria pulled up an image on the screen. “This is supposedly an abandoned fortress in Sokovia.”

She clicked to a more recent image and it was crawling with high tech tanks and weaponry. 

“This is what it looked like yesterday when I accessed the geographic location with the satellites.”

“That looks promising.” Fin leaned forward in her seat. 

“That looks like hydra” I pointed at some of the weaponry. I'd seen the style before. 

“I’ve been pulling what information I can about the surrounding terrain and the building but it’s slow going. Apparently Sokovia isn’t big on record keeping.”

“So we’re going in right? This is it.” Tony stood, starting to pace. He wanted this done as much as the rest of us. 

“No.” I said and everyone looked at me with varying degrees of frustration. “Not yet. We can’t afford another incident like the first. We can’t let them know we’re coming...and we can’t give Strucker the chance to get the upper hand.” My eyes flicked to Fin, Strucker knew who she really was and that concerned me even more than her getting killed. I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he got his hands on her again. 

“How much longer do you want to wait?” Tony raised his voice. I didn’t really give a damn what he thought about it, he was the one that put me in charge. 

“Until I'm damn good and ready!” I stood, raising my voice to meet his. “We can’t go into this half cocked, Tony.”

“No, you’re right.” his tone was sarcastic and I knew he didn’t think I was right. “We should make sure we are full cocked, 100% agree. But I need to know when that’s going to be, Cap.”

“Hill, how much more intel do you think you can get on this place?”

“I’m not sure, but I have a few other avenues to explore.”

“Give me a few days. Give Hill time to gather some intel and let me make a plan. I want to make sure if we have a plan that gets us in, it also gets all of us out. We need to do this right.”

  
  


**[Fin - 07:02 May 4th, 2015 - ST. MARY’S CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL]**

When Tony told us that Rhodes had called in a favor, this isn’t exactly what I'd pictured. 

“Are you for real a superhero?” The little boy coloring beside me asked scrupulously, taking in my black on black fatigues, before looking over my shoulder at ironman and war machine. 

“I’m one of the Avengers, for REAL.” I leaned in as if I were telling him a secret. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. I was really bombing this ‘impress the sick kids’ thing. 

“What’s your superpower then?” I thought about it, somehow I didn’t think cutting myself and letting it heal slowly was going to impress the kid. 

“I’m extra strong, fast, and I'm hard to hurt. I'm also very good at getting things.”

“What kinds of things?” I peaked his interest. Probably shouldn’t tell him about stealing international secrets…

“All kinds of things.” I shrugged. 

“Prove it.” Oh no, I'd been challenged by a preteen. “I bet you can’t even get any of the candy from the nurse desk without them seeing you.”

“Don’t you know? Candy is my specialty.” I stood up, walking to the nurses desk where a toad faced woman answered phones. When she looked my way I ducked around a corner dramatically and heard the little boy giggle. 

I took out my phone, dialing the hospital and the extension number to the nursing station. The toad faced woman rolled her eyes and groaned. Popping a piece of candy in her mouth as she turned to pick up the receiver. I darted out from my cover, snatching the whole bowl and ducking back to the table where the kid and I had been coloring. 

“You better share.” I handed him the bowl as I sat back at the low children’s table. 

“That was awesome!” He scooted back from the table, putting the candy dish in his lap before rolling in his chair to a group of other kids, regaling them with tales of my heroism.

“You know, we didn’t come here to teach the kids to steal.” I heard Steve whisper from behind me in an amused voice that was doing it’s best to sound disappointed. I popped a piece of the candy I'd kept for myself in my mouth with a smile. 

“I could have taught him how to kill a man with their bare hands, would that have been better?” He sat on the table near me, laying a hand on my back and brushing my hair over my shoulder. I looked around the room, most of the kids were clamoring around Tony and Rhodes, excited to see the suits in person. Nat and Barton were hanging out with a couple younger kids, speaking in rapid ASL. Bruce had opted out of this particular trip, saying it was bad for his blood pressure and I think everyone was a little more relaxed knowing the children’s hospital wasn’t going to get a hulk style remodel. Elena had disappeared when the chaos started and while everyone else assumed she was avoiding the cacophony I knew the truth. I'd seen her duck into one of the rooms with a kid that hadn’t come out to see us and something told me a lucky kid was getting a small miracle today. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve open his mouth to speak and clear his throat instead. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” He shook his head.

“Really, that’s weird because I could have sworn you just did your ‘I'm going to ask a question but changed my mind at the last second’ face.” I did the face back at him before going back to watching the kids try to climb up war machine.

“I just wondered if you ever…” He gestured to the room. “Thought about it.”

“What? Thought about kids?” I hadn’t, not really. “No...with my parents...the real ones anyway, and being an agent. I like kids, I just never thought it was on the table. What about you?”

“Growing up I imagined that it would be nice to have a wife and kids, be 'normal'... but the thought was also terrifying because I knew that the kid could be born just like me. Small...weak.” His eyes went to some of the kids in the room, the ones confined to wheelchairs and leg braces. “Growing up poor and sick...nobody deserves that and I didn't want to bring anyone into it. When I became Captain America I thought maybe it would be different. That maybe if I survived the war I'd go home, have a family be...normal…”

“and now?” I asked. Is that what he wanted? A family, kids...a normal life. Is that what I wanted? 

“I’m not sure. When I woke up I didn’t think…” He shrugged, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “Maybe it would be nice to try something normal when all this is over.”

"When's that going to be?" I hadn't meant to be harsh, but when were we 'done' with this. Once we took out hydra? What about when the next threat came along, and there would be a next threat, we both knew it. 

“Scuse me.” A little voice chirped from beside me, her small hand tapping my shoulder. A little girl, maybe three or four but very tiny for her age stood holding a piece of paper, looking back and forth between me and Cap. She held out the paper. 

“Do you want me to give this to him?” I asked, none of the kids knew who Elena and I were so I assumed when I got attention they either wanted the more well known person with me or they wanted me to steal them candy. The little girl shook her head. “For me?” She nodded frantically. 

I unfolded the paper to see a rainbow and a lot of hearts around a stick person with red hair and lips. 

“Is this me?” I sounded flattered, I didn't have to try very hard for it to be convincing. 

“Yeah...You are pretty and a superhero.” She had a slight lisp and her pronunciation of her S’s slurred. “This is a thank you for saving the world.”

“I didn’t--” I started to say I hadn’t saved the world but Steve interrupted. 

“She saves the world all the time! Can you keep a secret?” Her eyes went wide and she nodded so hard I thought her head would roll off. He knelt to be eye level with the kid and she beamed. “She saves me from bad guys almost every day.”

“She does!?” The little girl giggled. “Do you save her too?”

“Only if she needs me to.” He winked. The little girl leaned over, cupping her hand over her mouth to whisper something to him. I saw his cheeks go pink and wondered what the little girl had said to make him blush. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“Are you his girlfriend?” She giggled and my face felt hot. Why were children interrogating me today?

“Yes I am.” I looked at him, wondering why he hadn’t just answered her himself.

“Are you gonna get married and have babies?” She followed up and both of us started stammering incoherently at the poor kid. 

“Guys, wheels up. I'm not sure what happened but they’re mobilizing, our window is closing and we have to move now.” Maria came over comms and I'd never been more relieved to be sent out on a rush mission. “Banner and Thor will meet you there. Looks like we might have a code green.”

“You answer that” I used his shoulder for leverage as I got to my feet. “I’ll get Elena.”

  
  


**[Elena - 16:42 May 4th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

_‘Why aren’t you out there with the other kids?’ I knew the answer, I'd seen her file at the nurses’ desk. She’d only been moved to the children’s hospital a few days ago when she’d been released from the ICU. She’d been in critical condition after a fire and while she wasn’t out of the woods she no longer needed constant care._

_‘No one wants me out there’ the little girl shrugged. ‘They all stare at me.’ I looked at the little girl, she was only nine but her eyes knew pain no nine year old should be aware of. Her left side was covered in bandages, pink and yellow splotches seeping through the white cloth where the burns were the worst._

_‘They’re just kids, they don’t do it to be cruel...not most of them.’_

_‘The adults do it too...i don’t want to go out there just so the avengers can look at me and feel sorry for me.’ She turned her face away, tears welling in her eyes._

_‘You know, you remind me of a friend of mine. She doesn’t like people to see when she’s hurt either.’ I couldn’t help but smile, I could see Fin through the crack in the door talking to a little boy._

_‘She sounds smart. Only two things happen when you show people how you feel. They feel sorry for you, or they use it against you. Either way you’re still hurt.’_

_‘That’s why I came in here...I wanted to show you a third option.’_

“Shit!” Tony’s shout over the comms pulled me back into the present and away from my thoughts of the hospital. I hadn’t realized I'd been on autopilot.

  
“Language!” Steve chided over the sound of the motorcycle. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it this morning, Tony kept cursing in front of the kids and for a minute we thought we were going to be asked to leave. “JARVIS, what's the view from upstairs?”

“The central building is protected by some kind of energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other Hydra base we've taken.” Jarvis’s calm voice relayed the information from our satellites. 

“That’s not entirely true.” Fin shouted over the sound of Steve’s motorcycle. “We have evidence the first target was well fortified, we were just too late to see it first hand.” 

  
“Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last.” Thor announced as I watched Natasha throw around a group of Soldiers like they were play things. 

  
“At long last is lasting a little long, boys.” She was right, we had to get in before the scepter got away again.   
  


“Yeah. I think we lost the element of surprise.” Barton chimed in over the comms. 

“Wait a second. No one else is going to deal with the fact that Cap just said ‘language’?" Tony sounded abashed and I looked in Steve’s direction, surprised when I didn’t see Fin with him and realizing she must have hopped off the bike when they’d passed me. 

“I know.” Steve jumped over the handlebars of his motorcycle, using the momentum to turn it into a projectile. It embedded itself into the hood of the oncoming jeep and stopped it in its tracks. “It just slipped out. “ 

“Hey.” Fin appeared beside me in the fray. “Steve wants us to run ahead and backup Tony while they hold the bulk of the forces.” I looked at her skeptically and she rolled her eyes. 

“Steve?” I asked on comms, I didn’t need to say more. 

“Go. Stay together. We’ll catch up.” He confirmed. He ran, dodging the forces who were too distracted trying to kill our friends. 

“Clint!” I heard Nat yell in my earpiece and looked back to see a small army between them and the rest of the team, Barton on the ground. I kept my eyes on them, making sure I didn't need to go back but Fin kept pulling me with her. I watched as something threw Cap off balance but he regained his feet too quickly for me to be concerned.   
  


“We have an enhanced in the field.” Steve warned us.

  
“Clint's hit!” Nat sounded concerned. “Somebody want to deal with that bunker!?” The thunderous roar of the Hulk echoed through the valley as he ran through the structure. “Thank you.”

  
“Stark, we really need to get inside.” If Steve was looking for cover we were in trouble. We needed to keep moving. Fin and I had made it through the streets of the small village surrounding the bunker unseen but if the shields were still up when we got there we had our backs against a wall.   
  


“I'm closing in.” Tony reassured. 

“Do it faster, Tony.” Fin snapped, when I followed her gaze I could see tanks were closing on a concentrated space. With a low whooom of power draining I felt the shields drop a moment before Tony confirmed. 

“Drawbridge is down, people.”

  
“Clint's hit pretty bad, guys. We're gonna need E back.” Nat was trying to keep her voice calm, I assumed for Barton’s sake. 

“Once I get clear I'll head to you. Position?” 

“I can get Barton to the jet. The sooner we're gone the better.” Thor offered.

  
“Copy that. Elena, can you get to the jet? Thor will meet you there with Barton.”

“You got this?” I asked Fin. She rolled her eyes but she understood why Steve and I hadn’t let her out of our sight since the last time we ran into Strucker.

“Go, I'm just keeping Tony out of trouble...how hard can that be.”

“That’s the spirit!” Tony encouraged. 

“Heading that way.” Heard the sound of Thor’s hammer striking Vibranium and watched the shock waves ripple through the trees as I ran down the hill. Thor yelled at Tony over the comms. 

  
“Find the scepter!”   
  


“And for gosh sakes, watch your language!” Tony mocked and Steve sighed audibly enough that the comps picked it up.   
  


“That's not going away anytime soon.” he sounded dejected. 

“If it helps, I think you’re fucking adorable” Fin added helpfully. 

“Cap, your girlfriend has a potty mouth.”

  
  


**[Steve - 16:52 May 4th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

“We’re locked down out here.” Nat sounded shaken, even over the comms. Barton must be hurt bad but I was finally in the building. It was about damned time. I took off my helmet, grateful for the cool air. 

“Then get to Banner. Time for a lullaby” I knew they could get everything handled outside, I wanted to find Strucker before Fin did. As I rounded a corner a little too fast I saw movement and lifted the shield on instinct before my brain registered that there was no threat. 

“Little jumpy?” Fin’s light voice echoed off the stone walls. 

“You could say that.” I answered her as I lowered the shield, trying to keep my voice flat. Between Barton taking a hit, the army we hadn’t been expecting, and Strucker being here I was on edge. “Any luck?”

“If not running into Strucker is lucky, then yes. All the luck you could ever dream of.” She crossed her arms to emphasize the sarcasm. It was the closest Fin got to pouting. 

“Good.” I walked to her, bending to kiss her on the forehead as I passed to take point. She didn’t fight me on either matter. When we came to a branch off in the hallway she tilted her head to the curved side path, signaling that she would take that route while I cleared the room ahead. I nodded in response and she disappeared around the corner. The doors in front of me opened but before the guard between them could see me I mule kicked him square in the chest. He went flying and as I followed his body into the room where a familiar face greeted me. 

“Baron Strucker. Hydra's number one thug.” I almost smiled. I was glad I'd gotten to him first. I stepped the rest of the way into the room, moving so no one could come up behind me in the open doorway. 

“Technically, I'm a thug for SHIELD.” he countered as he turned to keep me from getting behind him. 

“Well then technically you're unemployed. Where's Loki's scepter?” Behind me was a dark alcove as well as another exit and the stairwell I assumed Strucker had come from. I hoped that the movement I'd seen in the shadows was Fin and if not I hoped she was close behind. 

  
“Don't worry, I know when I'm beat. You'll mention how I cooperated, I hope” he couldn’t be serious. 

  
“I'll put it right under shooting one of my team and illegal human experimentation…” I tried to push the memory of Fin’s bruise covered body out of my mind. “How many are there?”

I hadn’t seen anyone else enter the room but I sure as shit felt it when the blast hit me in the side. I dropped the shield as I was flung down the stairs. I got to my feet and ran back up to see a girl in a red coat backing out of the doorway I'd entered through, closing the doors without touching them. I was creeped out but relieved to know she wasn’t moving towards Fin. 

“We have a second enhanced. Female. Do not engage.” I was surprised to see Strucker where I'd left him, I thought he would have run.   
  


“You'll have to be faster than…” I kicked the shield up into my hands and knocked him out before he could finish. I just wanted to get out of here. Fin came crashing through the rear doorway as Strucker’s body hit the ground. She took the shield from me and stepped back, making room for me to throw him over my shoulder.   
  


“Guys, I got Strucker.” I let everyone know we were on our way out. Fin led the way, shield first as I followed close behind, keeping an eye out for either of the enhanced.   
  


“Yeah, I got...something bigger…”

  
  


**[Fin - 17:37 May 4th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

_Casta Diva - Maria Callas_

We made our way out of the fortress and back to our companions, I headed for the jet while Steve made a call. I wasn’t happy about turning Strucker over to the ‘proper’ authorities but I had to admit that the tower didn’t have much in the way of holding cells. I leaned against the hull, not quite ready to be back inside with the others, especially with whatever was happening with Clint. It was better if I stayed out of the way. 

I almost didn’t notice Bruce sitting on the ground a few feet away from me, wrapped in a blanket and looking at nothing in the distance. I watched him for a moment, his gaze unfocused, he jumped as the unmarked helo came within hearing range. I stepped closer, careful to make plenty of sound with my footfalls to not startle him. 

“You alright?” I asked quietly. He didn’t respond. “Bruce?” At his name his head whipped around to face me. 

“Huh?” 

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah I'm--” He lost the sentence, his focus snapping to the chopper that had just landed in the clearing where Cap waited with Strucker. We both watched as several armed men unloaded, followed by a tall blonde with a face I wanted to punch and I rolled my eyes at her mere presence. I should have known when Maria had told us that someone volunteered to be the Avenger’s liaison that it was too easy, most of the government didn’t want to touch us with all the ‘super-powered people’ politics. I watched the heavily armored men take Strucker as Sharon held back, saying something to Steve. She reached up and touched his shoulder while she spoke and I had to remind myself that shooting family was discouraged. Besides, he was going home with me, I didn’t need to worry about it. I took a deep breath and refocused my energy toward something more productive. 

“Come on, let’s get you on the jet.” I took Bruce by the elbow, helping him to his feet without issue but as we started to enter the jet he resisted. “We have to get in to leave you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” His eyes darted around and back to me. “Just not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just not READY!” He pulled his arm away, crossing them in front of him and pulling the blanket tight around his shoulders. I held up my hands in a sign of cooperation. 

“Okay, I get that...but look.” I pointed to where the government helo was taking off. “Cap is on his way over which means we have to go, we have to get Clint back stateside right?” I hoped that his wound had been something Elena already had handled but I wasn’t above using the excuse to get Banner on the jet. He grunted in response. Great. 

“Why don’t you want to get in the jet?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as annoyed as I felt. 

“Everyone else is...I don’t want…” he ran both hands over his head and when he dropped them to his side his hair stood on end in two unkempt strips. “It’s too crowded!”

“Right…” I held out my hand. “Come on, I might have something for that.” He gave me a confused look as he took my hand, letting me lead him into the jet. I walked him past the chaos in the front, keeping myself between him and everyone else as I led him to the back where I usually hid. I sat him on the bench, motioning for him to give me a second. I stepped away and his eyes immediately went to everyone else, their raised and concerned voices. Once I found what I was looking for in my bag I sat beside him and tapped him on the shoulder. It took him a moment to tear himself away from the commotion but when he did I handed him my noise cancelling headphones. 

I usually wore them to sleep on the quinjet, our comms let conversation come through as they were designed too and sometimes I just wanted to tune everything out. Part of me wanted to do that now but Bruce needed it more. 

“What are they for?” He took them from me.

“Trust me.” I smiled, showing him the playlist I'd loaded of music I found calming. It was mostly opera and classical music, nothing I could sing along with, although sometimes I did attempt the opera to Elena’s chagrin. “Put on a song and pick an instrument to focus on...try to pick it out while you listen. It will help distract from, well, everything else. Oh, and if a song makes you anxious or is too much just skip it. I know Mozart’s requiem can be a little intense if you’re trying to calm down.” He put the headphones on and pulled the blanket tight around him before finding a spot on the floor to look at as he pressed play. I hoped it would help, the last thing we needed was Hulk on a plane. 


	3. So Far

**[Elena - 18:02 May 4th, 2015 - EN ROUTE]**

“Something's wrong...I can’t…” I’d been trying to close the wound since we’d boarded and I'd made a little progress before take off. Was I really that drained from the hospital? I didn’t feel like I'd expended that much energy. I closed my eyes, trying to take stock of where the problem was when I felt it. The damned scepter was on board the quinjet. 

“What do you mean you can’t?” Nat asked from the co-pilot seat. “Fix him!” 

“I’ll do what I can until we get to the lab but that’s all I can do. I'm sorry.” My eyes darted to the scepter. “Whatever power that thing is putting off...it's interfering with my abilities.”

“How?” Steve asked, he sounded upset and I tried not to take it personally. 

“The Vargburin get their abilities from the energy in themselves as well as their environment, father always thought that was why full moons became associated with their shape changing. The nights of full moons have a different energy about them .” Thor shrugged and seeing the others waiting for him to reach a point, he tried to summarize. “The scepter, it has a powerful aura.” 

“If it’s putting off power, wouldn’t it make your abilities stronger? Not stop them?” Steve asked and I searched for the simplest way to explain. 

“It’s different. Mjolnir is like...a positive charge. Its energy feels like static that’s about to shock you, it’s giving off energy. The scepter is like a negative charge, it has it’s own energy that it’s giving off but all the energy in the room wants to...stick to it, instead of letting me pull it to me.”

“Can’t you just grab onto the hammer, charge your battery directly?” Tony offered. 

“No feeling that I get from Mjolnir’s energy gives me a ‘you should touch this’ vibe.” I shook my head, trying to get the strange pitch of the scepter out of my ears. “I'll keep him stable Nat. I promise. Tony, I'm not sure what the range on that thing is...so anyone you might have up your sleeve to help patch up Barton once we land would be appreciated.” 

“I’ll make some calls.” Tony answered while I did what I could to clean the wound, it was deep but lucky for him it cauterized on impact so bleeding out wasn’t a concern at the moment. I hung an IV bag and started to walk to the other side of the table to set it but Cap stopped me. 

“I got it.” He held out his hand, his voice soft, almost apologetic for his earlier comment. “Go sit down, it’s been a long day for everybody. We’ll get him patched up as soon as we get home, right? He’s stable, he’ll be okay.”

“Yeah.” I reluctantly handed over the needle and medical tape. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” I eyed him skeptically. 

“Believe it or not I do have basic field training.” His eyebrows rose as he spoke, a look I'd come to learn meant ‘you underestimate me’. 

“Alright!” I threw my hands up in surrender. “Go ahead field medic America. I'll be over here if you need me.” I walked as far from the scepter as I could get on the ship and watched Nat leave her chair, checking on Barton briefly before finding Bruce in the corner where Fin had stashed him. 

Bruce took off the headphones as Nat knelt in front of him, laying her hand on his knee. I tried not to eavesdrop as Fin elbowed me in the shoulder, nodding in their direction with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged in response, I didn’t know what was going on between those two any more than she did. 

  
“Thor, report on the Hulk?” Nat’s voice carried across the carrier and we all looked up. Fin got to her feet, going over to poke at Steve playfully now that Thor was responding to Nat instead of discussing more serious topics with him. 

“The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims.” Thor announced reverently. I could hear Banner’s groan over the engines as Nat glared and Thor tried to back track. “ Uh, but, not the screams of the dead, of course. No no, uh...wounded screams, mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and, and uh... and gout.”

“Yes, gout...and dysentery!” Fin added unhelpfully from behind Cap, her arms wrapped around his waist as he looked at the ceiling and tried not to laugh. Thankfully Tony changed the subject. 

“Hey Banner, Dr. Cho's on her way in from Seoul, is it okay if she sets up in your lab?”

  
“Uh, yeah,” It took him a second to pull his mind from the guilt that came with Hulk's rampages but he managed. “she knows her way around.”

  
“Thanks.” He turned back to the console and spoke quietly to Jarvis. “Tell her to prep everything, Barton's gonna need the full treatment.” I felt a pang of guilt myself at that, putting a teammate back together was a burden I wasn’t used to other people having to shoulder for me.   
  


“Very good, sir.” Jarvis answered and Tony asked him to take the wheel, which meant we were out of hostile airspace. Tony got up and joined the rest of us in the back and Fin took a step away from Cap. I wasn’t sure what it was but she always got super self conscious about PDA when Tony was around.   
  


“It feels good, yeah?” The men stood around the scepter, watching it like it might disappear. I stayed on my side of the plane. “I mean, you've been after this thing since SHIELD collapsed. Not that I haven't enjoyed our little raiding parties, but…”  
  


“No, but this...this brings it to a close.” Thor nodded.  
  


“As soon as we find out what else this has been used for. I don't just mean weapons. Since when is Strucker capable of human enhancement?” Cap brought up a good point, who knows what else hydra had been using the scepter for. I couldn't help glancing at Fin, I guess not all hydra experiments were bad but I didn’t like when they were being used against us. 

  
“Banner and I will give it the once before it goes back to Asgard. Is that cool with you?” Thor agreed silently as Tony continued. “I mean, just a few days until the farewell party. “

“You were serious about that?” Fin balked but Tony ignored her and kept talking to Thor. 

“You're staying right?  
  


“Yes, yes, of course. A victory should be honored with revels!”  
  


“Yeah.” He leaned on the table, looking over at Cap, who had been against Tony throwing him a party when he decided he didn’t want to stay in the tower much longer. “Who doesn't love revels. Captain?”

  
“Hopefully this puts an end to the Chitauri and HYDRA, so.” He smiled at Tony and reluctantly added. “Yes, revels.”

  
  


**[Bucky - 22:00 May 4th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

 _ So Far - Olafur Arnalds _

_‘What the hell are you doing?’_

“Shut up!” I hissed at the voice in my head. I didn’t have an answer for it and worse...it had a good point, I was standing in her bedroom. I shouldn’t have broken into the house but when I'd sent Elena a message and she didn’t answer after an hour I'd panicked. It had taken me another forty-five minutes to get to the house unseen and when I arrived I tried calling. When there was still no answer I waited outside for another hour before the voices started to worry that she was in danger. Before I knew what I was doing I was inside the building, clearing rooms one by one, and now that I'd confirmed that the place was empty the voices were in a frenzy. 

_‘It’s not safe in here.’ ‘It’s a trap! You’re trapped!’ ‘They will be back soon, you should go!’_

I tried to ignore them. I didn’t have a reason to still be in here, not after I'd confirmed that she wasn’t in danger, but I felt like I needed to prove to myself that I didn’t need to listen to the voices. I needed to prove to myself that they were wrong and being here would not be the end of me. I did leave the bedroom, closing the door to leave it like I'd found it, I hadn’t come to go through her stuff. 

I walked calmly through the living room, stopping to read the names on the records displayed on a shelf above a victrola cabinet. I recognized a few and made a note to look them up later as I made my way into the kitchen. I took a bag of chips from the basket on the counter and shoved it into my pocket before opening the fridge. There wasn’t much inside and I wondered if they’d even been back here since the last time I was here. It didn’t look like it. 

Eventually I left, making sure there was no sign of my being there. I waited nearby, hoping the people hunting me assumed I was long gone from this place. After all, they didn’t know I would come back to collect the dead drop, I hadn’t known myself. I especially hadn’t expected to find it on the same block the skinny punk kid I'd known had lived on. I hadn’t recognized it at first, everything was different now, everything but the street names. 

I knew I would be found eventually, and it would be even sooner if I didn’t have help. Part of me didn’t want to leave but I knew as long as I stayed here I was on borrowed time. I needed a third party to set me up with someone I could trust not to turn me over as soon as they saw me and the only person I trusted to do that was Elena. 

  
  


**[Steve - 05:24 May 5th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

We landed at the tower and before we’d even finished unloading Hill came aboard. I caught Fin’s eye and knew she was thinking the same thing I was,’please don’t have something else’. We were both ready for this mission to be over, it was as though Strucker finally being taken down meant we could actually relax. 

“Lab's all set up, boss.” She announced, Tony interrupting her next words. 

  
“Uh, actually, he's the boss. I just pay for everything, and design everything and make everyone look cooler.” Tony pointed at me and I rolled my eyes. He’d been the one to make me the boss so I wasn’t sure what he was complaining about.   
  


“What's the word on Strucker?” It was the only question I needed answered. I needed to know he was still in custody and delivered as promised. 

  
“NATO's got him.” Maria confirmed. Good.   
  


“Anything on the two enhanced?” Fin asked from behind me, she hadn’t gotten a good look at either of them but when I'd told her about them on the way home she seemed concerned. 

  
“Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.” Maria handed me a tablet as she spoke, videos of the maximoff’s played. “Twins. Orphaned at ten when a shell collapsed their apartment building. Sokovia had a rough history. It's nowhere special but it's on the way to everywhere special.”

  
“Their abilities?” I hoped we had some intel there, if we had to go up against them again I didn’t want to go in blind. 

  
“He's got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Her thing is neural electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation.” My confusion must have been apparent because she translated her words into english for me. “ He's fast and she's weird.”

“Yep, that’s weird alright.” Fin watched over my shoulder as the video showed the girl, Wanda, throwing a chair without touching it. I handed the tablet back to Hill and pressed the button for the elevator. 

  
“Well, they're going to show up again.” I didn’t know why I thought that, but something told me we weren’t done with them yet.   
  


“Agreed. File says they volunteered for Strucker's experiments. It's nuts.” Fin got onto the elevator as the doors opened and I followed, turning back to Hill.   
  


“Right. What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?” I had tried to keep my tone light but I heard the bite in it.   
  


“We're not at war, Captain.” She tried to argue.   
  


“They are.” She didn’t have a rebuttal and the doors closed between us. Fin didn’t say anything as we watched the numbers change. 

“Say it.” I pushed. 

“Say what?” She was not good at being quiet when there was something on her mind and even as she tried to deny it she tugged at her shoulder harness straps. 

“Say whatever you’re trying not to say.” I laughed and she sighed, turning to face me. 

“I don’t like it ...I don't like any of it. I don’t like that Strucker was experimenting on those kids, I don’t like that it was so easy to get him to come with us. I don’t like how the whole thing went down. In the moment it seemed like a fight but in the end it was too easy.”

“Easy? They are regrowing part of Barton in the lab right now.”

“I know, but the fact is he’s getting fixed, not autopsied. With that many guns and two enhanced...we should be worse off than we are...and I don’t like that thing messing with Elena either.”

“That is concerning, I'll give you that.” We watched the numbers continue to fall in silence for a moment before I continued with a relieved smile. “We got Strucker.”

“Yes you did.” I caught her rubbing the bottom of her ribs subconsciously and took her hand to stop her. She knew first hand what being a Strucker experiment was like, as well as the feeling of having a hole blown through your torso. No wonder this had her jumpy. I gave it a quick squeeze to refocus her attention on the here and now. 

“No more Strucker. No more experiments.” 

“Does this mean you’ll stop worrying about me in the field?” she teased. I knew I'd been more protective of her than I needed to after the incident with Strucker but I wasn’t about to admit it. 

“Nope, you’re stuck with that” I laughed “but you know what worries me more than anything?” I asked and she cocked her head to the side before answering. 

“Tony throwing you a party?” She guessed and I laughed. 

“You’re not wrong...I should have never told him I was going anywhere…”

“I’m pretty sure he would have noticed when you left. Jarvis would probably tell him eventually.”

“True, but I would have avoided the party.”

“I can’t wait until he figures out we’re going with you.” She squeezed my hand.

“You know you don’t have to.” I wanted her to, but I didn’t want her to feel obligated to help me find Bucky because of our relationship. 

“Please,” She rolled her eyes. “like you can be rid of me that easily. Besides, I DARE you to try to tell Elena she can’t come.”

  
  


**[Elena - 05:57 May 5th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

I'd left my burner phone at the tower and came back to three missed calls from James. I let myself panic for a moment but I couldn’t call him back now, not standing in the middle of Bruce’s lab in the tower. I texted him an explanation and promised to call as soon as I could slip out, with Barton hurt someone would definitely notice if I disappeared. Instead I listened to Bruce and Tony analyze the scepter while I waited for my moment, I wasn’t sure they realized anyone could hear them.

"He's fine. He's thirsty.” Tony was answering bruce’s inquiry on Barton’s well being. “Alright. Look alive, JARVIS. It's play time. We've only got a couple days with this joystick so let's make the most of it. Update me on the structural and compositional analysis.”

  
‘The scepter is alien. There are elements I can't quantify.’

  
“So there's elements you can.”

  
‘The jewel appears to be a protective housing for something inside. Something powerful.’

  
“Like a reactor?”   
  


‘Like a computer. I believe I'm ciphering code.’

Dr. Cho finished getting Barton set up in her healing machine, I watched as it started to regrow his tissue and realized there finally was a robot that could put me out of a job.   
  


“You sure he's going to be okay? Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together.” Natasha teased. 

  
“There's no possibility of deterioration. The nano-molecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't know they're bonding with simulacrum.” Cho explained. 

  
“She's creating tissue.” Bruce summarized.   
  


“If you brought him to my lab, the regeneration Cradle could do this in twenty minutes.”

That’s nice Dr. Cho, I thought to myself, I could have it done in five and with his own tissue if that damned scepter wasn't here. I looked in it’s direction...it felt like it was watching me.

“Oh, he's flatlining. Call it. Time?” Tony announced helpfully.   
  


“No, no, no. I'm going to live forever. I'm gonna be made of plastic.” Barton joked, it was nice the enemy had left his sense of humor intact. Tony handed him some unappetizing green drink and I assumed if Barton felt good enough to make jokes I could step outside. I opened my voicemail first and listened to the messages left by James. I listened more than once before hitting the call back button. 

“Rough morning?” He answered calmly and I felt my shoulders relax at the sound of his voice. 

“You could say that…”

“Anything I can do to help?” 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I countered, referring to the voicemail.

“Can you?” He sounded unsure, like he thought he shouldn’t be asking. 

“Yes. I can. I'll need some time to see what my options are but I think I can manage.” I wasn’t happy about the idea of sending him out of the country but it probably wasn’t a bad idea. I didn’t think he’d be happy about what I was going to say next either. “We need to discuss this in person, I won’t be able to go over details without being overheard and if they know…”

“They’ll stop me.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m nearby, when you get the chance just text me when and where. I will be there.”

  
  


**[Steve - 20:46 May 9th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

I tried to avoid the party as long as possible but eventually I resigned myself to the inevitable. After our last party my need to keep an eye on Fin was outweighing my want to not participate. As I looked around I noticed that, while the crowd was filled with familiar faces, it was also made up of an older crowd than Tony’s normal guests. It didn’t take long for me to see all the VFW hats and patches to realize what he’d done. Sam pulled me aside as I entered the room, steering me to the pool table before I could find a reason to protest. He told me how his morning had gone, another cold lead with nothing to show for it, and I did the same while he kicked my ass at pool. By the time we finished there was a line of people waiting for their turn so we took our conversation elsewhere. 

“Sounds like a hell of a fight, sorry I missed it.” I thought he was being sarcastic but sometimes I couldn’t tell with Sam. 

“If I had known it was going to be a firefight I absolutely would have called you.” I offered sincerely. 

“Oh no. No, I'm not actually sorry. I'm just trying to sound tough. I'm very happy chasing cold leads on our missing persons case. Avenging is your world. Your world is crazy.” We stopped on one of the several balconies and looked at the party below. 

“Be it ever so humble.” Tony’s need to throw parties like this was something I'd never get used to. 

“You find a place in Brooklyn yet?” Sam asked, sipping his drink. He was the only one I'd told I was looking. I wanted to get out of the tower and being closer to Fin would be nice. Without S.H.I.E.L.D. there wasn’t a reason for me to go back to D.C. so I thought, why not go home?

“I don’t think I can afford a place in Brooklyn.” I shook my head. 

“Well, home is home, you know?” He elbowed me and gestured to a small group of people on the couches below us. Fin was laughing about something with Maria, Dr. Cho, and Nat. She was wearing one of the dresses she usually reserved for Frank’s and I wondered when she’d gone home for it. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and find someone looking for a roommate.”

“She already has a roommate...and I'm not sure we’re there yet…”

“You mean she’s not?” He asked. For some reason everyone thought any stalling in my relationship with Fin was on her end, me being a good old traditional sort of guy, but that wasn’t the case. We were both being cautious. 

“No. I mean we. Both of us...we’re trying not to screw this up.”


	4. I've Got No Strings

**[Elena - 21:13 May 9th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

“You can?” I wasn’t sure I'd heard the man on the other line correctly, the wind was making phone conversation difficult but I didn’t dare have this discussion inside.

“Yes. For you Ngelosi we can do this.” The accented voice repeated. “We will tell you when.”

“Thank you.” I ended the call and exhaled. One step closer. Now for the hard part. I went back into the kitchen where Barton had agreed to meet me. He kept insisting that, while Cho’s machine had fixed him, he felt weird. When I walked in he had his shirt lifted and was poking at the new skin. 

“Stop poking it or it will fall off.” I said flatly. 

“It’s going to fall off!?” He overreacted, knowing I was teasing and trying to make me laugh. It worked. 

“I’m not sure what you want me to do for you, it’s fixed.” I shrugged. 

“I just want a second opinion.” He smiled and I laid my hand on his side. I focused healing energy into my hand and felt my palm grow warm, his skin didn’t react. There was nothing for it to react to, the wound was closed. A few microscopic pieces finished knitting themselves in place, something they would have done on their own in a couple more days, but otherwise he was good as new. 

“You’re fine.” I reassured him. 

“Thanks, E.” He hugged me around the shoulders. “Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

“For doing nothing?” I laughed. 

“For being here. For being a good friend.” He leaned back on the counter. “I can’t pretend that I don’t see you’re up to something. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I also noticed you’re keeping Fin out of it, which means whatever it is isn’t safe or you don’t want Cap to know, but I know you well enough to trust you...so if you need a hand.”

“I might take you up on that.” My thoughts raced over the things Barton could help me with, barely eclipsing the premature guilt of involving him. “For now, let’s go see what kind of over the top trouble Tony has put together.”

“That I can help with.” He offered his arm and I took it, letting him lead us to the elevator. 

**[Steve - 21:49 May 9th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

Sam found a lady friend that seemed like more fun than me and left me to my own devices. Eventually I found myself at one of the tables with a handful of vets, listening to them tell stories about the good old days. Thor joined us to tell his own war stories, although his were a bit more fantastical. When he pulled out a small flask and started to pour, all the men at the table took interest. 

“I gotta have some of that!” One of the vets insists, it didn't take long for Thor to protest. 

“Oh, no, no, no. See this, this was aged for a thousand years,” He explains as he hands me a glass. I smell the golden liquid as he talks and recognize it as a similar mead to what I'd shared with Fin, once upon a time. “in the barrels built from the wreck of Brunhilde's fleet, it's not meant for mortal men”

“Neither was Omaha Beach, blondie.” Another veteran, Stanley, piped in. “Stop trying to scare us. Come on.” Thor looked to me and I shrugged. It was their choice. 

“Yeah, come on. Pour us a drink.” Fin sidled up to the bar with us, holding her mostly empty glass out to him. He raised an eyebrow and her and she mirrored the expression as he poured. He didn’t stop until she said “okay that’s enough. Now them.”

“Alright.” He poured a bit into each of the other men’s glasses, albeit much less than he’d given Fin. 

“A toast!” Stanley raises his glass. “ To the Avengers! And the best set of gams I've seen in 60 years!” He winks at Fin. The men make sounds of agreement as we clink the glasses and everyone sips their drinks. The mead isn’t exactly the same as what he’d had before, it’s still sweet with the mild flavor of honey but there’s more of a burn in my throat once it’s down. I looked to Fin, who’d downed her entire glass. Thor offers her more and she declines. 

“I think I'll switch to water for a bit.” Her cheeks are already pink, the mead already taking effect. Not to be outdone, the veterans also down theirs. One of the men froze, his brain unable to process the drink, while another sways on his feet. Stanley looks at me and smiles. 

“I’m going to need a ride.” is all he manages to get out before some of the private security Happy had brought along comes to collect him. A calm “Excelsior” can be heard as he’s carried away and I trust the rest of the group will be equally cared for. Thor looks at me and Fin, mildly disapproving. 

“I told you they shouldn’t have any.”

“They’re fine!” I argued. “They’ll be fine.” I took another sip of my drink and put an arm around Fin. I felt her sway a little, resting her weight against me. 

“Go find a comfortable seat, I'll get you that water and find you.” I whispered, letting my hand slide down her back. She reached up and tugged at my collar, her repositioning leaving my hand squarely on her ass. 

“Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave.” She grinned before letting me go. I blushed, turning to walk to the bar and feeling oddly self conscious. Bruce and Nat were already there talking, Nat pouring drinks. 

“Never say never” was the last thing I heard her say before she walked away, leaving Bruce alone with a drink. 

“It’s nice.” 

“What, what is?” Bruce asked, flustered. 

“You and Romanoff.” I smiled. 

“No, we haven’t. That wasn’t…” He stuttered. 

“It’s okay. Nobody’s breaking any by-laws. It’s just, she’d not the most...open person in the world. But with you she seems very relaxed.”

“No, Natasha she...she likes to flirt.” Bruce argued, his logical brain not letting him see what was actually happening in front of him. I could relate all too well. 

“I’ve seen her flirt, up close, this ain’t that.” I reached behind the bar, grabbing a water for Fin and a beer for me. The alcohol wouldn’t do much but the aftertaste of the mead left something to be desired. I looked over to where Fin had found a seat with Barton and a few others and Bruce scoffed at what I'm trying to tell him. “Look, as maybe the world's leading authority on waiting too long, don't. You both deserve a win.”

  
  


**[Fin - 21:53 May 9th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

I found a seat with Barton and Elena, one of them had ordered chinese food at some point and it smelled divine. I picked up an eggroll, eating it as I watched Steve walk to the bar. His ass looked better in his uniform but I couldn’t complain about the view. I wasn’t sure if it was the mead that was still sloshing about in my brain or just normal inappropriate thoughts but I couldn’t stop thinking about the things I'd rather be doing with Steve... unfortunately there were all these people here. 

“Fin.” Elena said, in a tone that told me it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. I looked over to her, eyebrows raised. “Are you alright?” 

“I’m fine.” I answered absently. “I had some of Thor's flask...Hey, do you have a quarter?”

“What?”

“Thor, he brought Asgardian mead. I think it’s stronger than what we have at home thought because--” 

“I got that part. Why do you need a quarter?” she asked and I looked back over to Steve talking to Bruce. 

“I wanted to see if it would bounce.” I mimed tossing the coin in the direction of the ass in question before resting my chin on my hand, staring longingly. Elena followed my gaze and rolled her eyes. 

“I have a quarter.” Clint spoke up helpfully from his seat on the floor, looking between me and Cap with a mischievous grin. 

“Why do we need a quarter?” Nat asked as she joined us, kicking off her shoes as she tucked her feet under her on the chair by Barton. 

“Isn’t playing quarters a little juvenile?” Hill came around the corner with Rhodey and Tony, she joined Clint on the floor. 

“Can’t we just drink like adults?” Rhodey offered. 

“I like the words you say. I like them very much.” Thor sat his hammer on the table with the food before sitting on the opposite end of the couch from me, blocking my view. “To revelries!” He lifted a stein full of beer. 

“What he said!” Maria agreed, holding up her bottle. Nat held up her glass. Steve made his way over to us, closely followed by Bruce. He held up a beer in toast without asking what we were toasting and slid past Thor to sit beside me. I took the water gratefully, sipping slowly from the condensation soaked bottle as I stared at the hammer on the glass top table.

“So is the table worthy or…” I didn’t have to finish the thought. Thor laughed. 

“Of course not. The hammer is not heavy.”

“Bullshit.” I said it louder than I'd meant to. Two people in this group had seen me try to pick it up and fail. 

“It’s not bullshit. It’s not heavy if the hammer deems you worthy of wielding it.”

“So the table.”

“Is an object, therefore it is neither worthy or unworthy. I sat it there and there it shall sit until such time as I lift it from that spot.” Thor grinned and I watched him pour some of the contents of his flask into his beer.

“But it’s a trick!” Barton added to the hammer conversation. I leaned forward to get Thor’s attention, motioning for him to share. He laughed and handed it to Steve, who took a swig before passing it to me. 

“Oh, no. it’s much more than that.” Thor grinned and Barton put on a low dramatic voice.

“Whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power!” He shrugged. “Whatever man! It's a trick”

“Well please,” He gestured to the hammer. “ Be my guest.”

“Really?” Barton looked around. 

“Yeah.” Thor encouraged him. Barton got to his feet, not bothering to put down the drumsticks he’d been fidgeting with for the last few hours. 

“Oh, this is gonna be beautiful.” Rhodes sat up in anticipation. 

“Clint, you've had a tough week, we won't hold it against you if you can't get it up.” Tony joked and everyone chuckled. 

“You know I've seen this before right?” He asked Thor. He grabs the hammer with one hand, cockily expecting it to lift from the table. When it doesn’t he laughs at himself. “I still don’t know how you do it.” He admits. 

“Do you smell the silent judgement?” Tony asked. 

“No, but I hear it...which seems inaccurate.” I added. It earned me Tony's side eye but I ignored it. 

“Please, Stark.” Barton held up his hands. “By all means.” The entire group became a chorus of ‘uh-oh’s and ‘okay here we go’s, seeing that the door to the proverbial dick measuring contest had just been opened. Tony undid his jacket as he walked to the hammer. 

“I’m never one to shrink from an honest challenge.” He gloated. 

“Get after it!” Clint egged him on. Tony put his wrist through the leather strap. “It’s physics.”

“Physics.” Bruce agreed...or questioned. His tone left the statement up for debate. 

“Right, so if I lift it, I...I then rule Asgard?” Tony teased. 

“Yes, of course.” Thor answered from the relaxed position of someone not even mildly concerned about that possibility. 

“I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta.”

“Gross Tony.” Elena wrinkled her nose at him as he put his foot on the table for leverage. He tries to lift the hammer and fails. 

“I’ll be right back.” he disappeared for a minute, returning with the Iron Man gauntlet and trying again, first without the jets and then with, eventually he gets Rhodes to help. 

“Are you even pulling?” he asks Tony as the hammer still doesn’t budge. Eventually they give up and give Bruce a go. Bruce reluctantly goes to the table and looks at the hammer. He pulls and manages to move it just as much as everyone else, although no one else ended their effort by pretending to turn into the hulk. No one was drunk enough to laugh, although I caught Steve hiding a wide grin behind his hand. I elbowed Steve in the ribs, taking his beer from him when he looked at me. 

“Go, you know you want to.” He smiles from ear to ear, looking at Thor before hopping to his feet to give it a go. For the first time all night I see a glimpse of concern on Thor's face. Steve rolls up his sleeves, taking the hammer in both hands and pulling. The squeak of the table moving makes Thor’s smile falter. Steve readjusts his grip and tries again, this time it doesn't budge. He throws his hands up in surrender. 

“See. Nothing.” Thor chuckles, relieved. Steve sits back down, putting his arm around me and I lean up to whisper to him.

“Didn’t want to make Thor feel bad?” I asked and felt him chuckle in response, although I wasn’t sure if it was in confirmation or denial. Either way, the masculinity contest was over in my mind and the mead had settled into a comfortable buzz in my blood. I felt warm, and emboldened. I put my hand on Steve’s leg, my fingertips brushing the inner seam of his pants. He shifted in his seat, his arm wrapped around me held me close as his other hand reached out to pull my legs onto his lap to hide anything I may have encouraged to stir. When I looked up to his face his jaw was clenched and he was very pointedly not looking in my direction, but his hand on my legs squeezed in acknowledgement. I wanted everyone to leave, or for us to leave. I'd never understood the expression “climb him like a tree” but I suddenly wanted to try and figure it out.

“Fin?” Tony said my name and I remembered we were still at a party...with people. 

“Hmm?” I turned back to the other people in the room, none of which I was currently concerned about. 

“Do you want to try?” Barton asked. 

“Oh, no. Been there, done that.” I shrugged. 

“When?” Thor looked puzzled. “I do not recall you laying hands on the mighty Mjolnir.”

“Yeah Fin, tell us about touching Thor’s mighty hammer.” He tried to make it sound like innuendo but no one seemed to care. 

“New Mexico, when you lost it.”

“Ah, yes...Did anyone else try? What about Phil, son of Coul?”

“If he did he didn’t tell me.” I shrugged, wondering if Coulson had tried. I imagine he had at least once when he thought no one was looking. 

“Elena?” Tony asked. She shook her head. 

“No thanks. Molnjir and I have an understanding.”

“And what’s that?” Bruce asked. 

“I understand that I'm not touching it.”

“All deference to the man who would be king, but it’s rigged.” Tony interjected. 

“You bet your ass.” Barton agreed. 

“Steve, he said a bad language word.” Maria sipped her beer pointedly and everyone chuckled. 

“Did you tell everyone about that?” Tony ignored the question. 

“The handles imprinted, right? Like a security code?” he guessed “‘whosoever is carrying Thor’s fingerprints’, I think is the literal translation.”

“Yes, well that's, uh, that's a very, very interesting theory. I have a simpler one.” He gets to his feet and lifts the hammer, flipping it in the air “You're all not worthy”

A piercing feedback squeal echoed from every speaker in the room, reverberating off the glass and metal room. Sobriety hit me like a brick wall and I watched everyone cover their ears on instinct. It stopped almost as abruptly as it started and left us looking at each other with varying degrees of confusion. I watched as one of the iron legion suits limped into the room, flashes of every evil robot movie I'd ever watched with Coulson suddenly flashed through my brain. I had no evidence that this was an evil robot, but I felt it was a safe assumption. 

“Worthy…” it hissed. “No...how could you be worthy? You’re all killers.” 

Shit. Evil AND judgemental. 

“Stark” Steve got to his feet, putting himself between me and Hal jr. 

“Jarvis?” Tony called for the AI. After all, he controlled the iron legion. 

“I’m sorry, I was asleep...or was i...a dream?” The robot kept rambling. 

“Jarvis.” Tony tapped his controls. “ Reboot Legionnaire OS. We got a buggy suit.” nothing happened. 

“There was a terrible noise...and I was tangled in...in strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy.” He sounded almost remorseful. 

“You killed someone?” Steve asked, stepping forward. 

“Wouldn’t have been my first call, but down in the real world we’re faced with ugly choices.”

“Who sent you.” Thor asked. The robot tilted its head and played a recording. Tony’s voice. 

_‘I see a suit of armor around the world.’_

“Ultron!?” Apparently this was starting to make sense to Bruce. I wished he would share with the rest of the class. 

“In the flesh...or, no. No yet. Not this...chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on a mission.” 

I watched Maria unholster her side arm and I wished I'd thought to at least put on a thigh holster under this dress. Once again my willingness to believe Tony when he said things like ‘don’t worry, a party will be perfectly safe’ was getting me into trouble. 

“What mission?” Nat asked. The robot turned its head to look straight at her as it answered. 

“Peace in our time.”

At it’s words more of the Iron legion bots burst through the walls behind it, all of them armed to attack. Steve stepped forward, kicking the coffee table into the air. It crashed into one of the bots as he grabbed me, another bot sent us flying but Cap broke my fall. Chaos ensued. I could hear gunfire and glass breaking, the echo of Thor's hammer on metal vibrating through the air as Steve rolled me off of him, looking at the table above us. I see what he sees. It’s not ideal as far as weapons go but it’ll have to do. I get to it before he does, crouching beside him with the metal skewer in my hand. 

“Throw me.” I ordered him. 

“What?” 

“I can’t jump that high, Throw me!” I yell at him. He doesn’t ask again, he tosses me at the legionnaire hovering above us. I nearly missed him but managed to get my arm around his neck as I lodged the skewer between it’s chest plate and neck joints. He doesn’t like that and I'm flung to the ground before I can do more damage. I see Steve leaping for the bot, trying to finish what I started. He grabs on, managing to hit it in the face a couple times before it slams him into a wall. Nat starts shooting as she and Bruce run up the stairs and again I curse myself for being unarmed. I start crawling to Steve where he lays in a pile of broken glass, he’s looking above him. 

“Stark!” He yells and I look up to see Tony hanging onto the bot above us, moving the skewer I'd left in it’s chest. 

“One sec, one sec!” Tony yells back. As that bot falls Barton runs into the room, yelling for Cap before throwing him his shield. Steve catches it and throws it into the last whole iron legion. Ultron turns away from us, walking towards the broken walls behind him.

“That was dramatic... I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to...evolve?” he picks up a broken Legionnaire by it’s head. “With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avengers' extinction.” Thor throws his hammer once more and Ultron catches it in the chest, breaking him into pieces. The lights in the bots face flicker, his warped speakers singing. 

_‘I had strings, but now I'm free...There are no strings on me...no strings on me…’_

“Well that was creepy.” I said to no one in particular. Thor tapped my shoulder, holding out the flask. I took it from him, gulping down a few burning mouthfuls before handing it back without a word. 

  
  


**[Elena - 22:19 May 9th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

_I’ve got no Strings - L’Orchestra Cinematique_

I started to follow everyone to the lab when I noticed a persistent metal crunching sound to my left. Fin was kicking one of the robots. 

“Stop. I think it’s dead.” I stepped between her and the bot before she broke her foot. She went to kick again and I had to grab her. “Stop that! What’s wrong with you?” Fin looks behind her to see that everyone else is gone. 

“I got cock blocked by Johnny 5 and friends.” She crossed her arms, pouting. 

“Okay...well how about we get you some water or coffee and you keep that to yourself.” I offered helpfully. We made our way down to the lab, everyone else was already discussing the situation. 

“He didn’t say dead. He said extinct.” Steve noted helpfully. 

“He also said he killed somebody.” Barton added. 

“But there wasn’t anyone else in the building.” Maria pointed out. 

“Yes there was.” Tony pulled up the virtual representation of Jarvis. It was obliterated. Bruce walked over to it, getting a better look. 

“That is insane.” He was dumbfounded. If he couldn’t make sense of it, I didn’t know who could. 

“Jarvis was the first line of defense. He would have shut Ultron down...it makes sense.” Steve was trying to make sense of it, we all were. What had Tony and Bruce been trying to make that resulted in something that would do this?

“No. Ultron could’ve assimilated Jarvis, this isn’t strategy, this is...rage.” Bruce would know rage when he saw it, better than most. Thor stomped across the room, picking up Tony by the throat. 

“That’s going around.” Barton commented but didn’t make a move to help. 

“Come on Thor, use your words, buddy.” Tony rasped. 

“I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark.” 

“Thor!” Steve got his attention. “The legionnaire?” Thor put Tony down, reluctantly. 

“Trail went cold about a hundred miles out but it's headed north, and it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it. Again.”

“The genie's out of that bottle. Clear and present is Ultron.” Nat added. 

“I don't understand.” Dr. Cho spoke up and I wondered if she was regretting her choice to stay for the party yet. “You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?”

“Isn’t that what always happens?” Fin said it calmly and everyone turned to look at her. “What? This literally happens in every movie where they try to use AI to protect humanity. Humans create smart robots to protect them, robots determine that the biggest threat to humans is humans, robots kill all the humans. You HAD to see this coming.” Tony started laughing. 

“You think this is funny?” Thor was not amused by Tony’s amusement. 

“No. It's probably not, right? Is this very terrible? Is it so...is it so...it is. It's so terrible.” Tony was taking this...not well exactly, but I'd expected him to be a little more serious on the subject of his tech turning against us. 

“This could have been avoided if you hadn’t played with something you don’t understand.” Thor was chiding him, but he wasn’t trying to choke him out anymore so that was a step in the right direction. 

“No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this.” 

“Tony, maybe this might not be the time to…” Bruce tried to defuse the situation and Tony snapped at him. 

“Really?! That's it? You just roll over, show your belly, every time somebody snarls.”

“Only when I've created a murder bot.” Bruce said pointedly. 

“We didn’t. We weren’t even close. Were we close to an interface?” He asked Bruce, who didn’t really disagree. 

“Well, you did something right. And you did it right here. The Avengers were supposed to be different than SHIELD.” Shit. Team dad Steve had on his disappointed voice.

“Tony.” As unofficially elected team mom, I tried to ask gently. “What did you do?”

“Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?” Tony asked.

“No, it’s never come up.” Rhodes answered helpfully. 

“Saved New York?”

“Never heard of that.” Rhodes continued. 

“Oh!” Fin snapped her fingers. “You mean that one time in your adult life you did something selfless? Yeah I remember that!” I shot her my best ‘you’re not helping’ look and she shrugged and walked to stand by Steve. 

“Recall that? A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there? That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?”

“Together.” He took Fin’s hand as he said it, not taking his eyes off of Tony. 

“We’ll lose.” Tony said confidently. 

“Then we’ll do that together too.”


	5. Full Dress Hop

**[Bucky - 05:19 May 10th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

It took me a moment after being startled awake to realize that the phone was ringing. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. 

“Hello.” I tried not to sound like I'd just woken up but she noticed anyway. 

“Sorry, I know it’s early. I have news...I’m afraid it’s not all good.”

She went on to explain a situation I couldn’t begin to wrap by head around. Robots, magic staffs, artificial intelligence. It sounded like a cheap science fiction reel but she was being sincere. 

“I did get most of it worked out, transportation and whatnot. There are only a few details that still need ironing out but I can’t do them and this...i’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, doll. A little while longer won’t kill me.”

“If you need a safe place to stay, I can give you the codes to the house in Brooklyn. It’s empty...probably will be for a while yet.” 

“Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on it.”

“Please do.” There was a pause and I heard voices behind her. “I have to go.”

She hung up. I laid on the bed for a while, just looking at the phone screen and wondering if I was being paranoid. Did I really need to leave the country? She’d been helping me stay hidden so far.

_‘What are you doing, RUN!’_

_‘Leave! You can’t stay here any longer!’_

_‘They’re going to find you.’_

_‘She can’t lie to her friends forever.’_

_‘She said you’re safe here. You trust her.’_

I shook away the voices, rolling over on the soft mattress. I'd been here a few days, longer than I'd stayed in most places, but it was empty and it was safe...I was also relieved that she’d invited me to stay here while she was gone...even if the permission came a little late. 

It was a nice place and I slept in the room with the boxes. At first the picture of myself on the wall was unnerving but it was a fair trade off for the boxes that blocked the windows, it gave me a sense of security that I didn’t feel in the other rooms. For the most part I kept as much untouched as I could, as not to raise suspicion, but I did take advantage of some of the nicer amenities, like the shower and the gym. There was also a record player with a lot of albums I recognized, a bookshelf with plenty to keep me distracted. The voices in my head told me I was getting too comfortable here, and they weren’t wrong.   
  


**[Elena - 05:22 May 10th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

“Can’t say I'm too upset about that.” Fin said, looking down at the tablet. 

“Not upset about what?” I asked, she passed it to me. 

“Someone took out Strucker.” She explained. 

“And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us!” Tony added. 

“This is a smokescreen.” Natasha pointed out. “Why send a message when you’ve just given a speech?”

“Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss.” Steve said it with some hesitation, not sure what exactly it is we were missing. 

“Yeah, I bet he…” Natasha searched Strucker in our database. The record had been deleted. “Yep. Everything we had on Strucker has been erased.”

“Not everything.” Tony looked at me. “Give me a hand?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he turned to walk away. I followed. He led me to the elevator and pressed the button for a floor I'd never been to. I hadn’t explored every floor of the tower, everyone had this unspoken assumption that if Tony or Jarvis hadn’t taken you to that floor before, you had no reason to be there. The one time Thor had gone exploring he’d found himself on the floor we now referred to as the ‘no zone’. It hadn’t been anything too innocuous but the hundreds of assistant operating systems, precursors to Jarvis, all asking how they could assist him had unsettled Thor. When anyone asked him to show him which floor he would just repeat “no” until the matter was dropped. I was a little concerned we were headed there now, with Jarvis being destroyed, but when the doors opened, I found myself in a strangely familiar room. I had never been on this floor before, I knew that for sure, but I had the strangest feeling…

“Pretty close to the original, don't you think?” Tony asked, seeing my face. “I couldn't get it perfect, so much of the building was gone. But I did my best.”

I walked up to one of the many rows of shelves, the cardboard filing boxes were neatly labeled and I ran my fingers across the top of the nearest one, the S.S.R. logo barely visible on the discolored paper. I remembered where I'd seen this all before. 

“How did you get into the Triskelion?” I kept walking as I talked, hearing him follow. 

“I have very special clearances. Also I didn’t really ask permission, which surprisingly gets you in a lot of places you aren’t supposed to be...Don’t worry, I didn't read your file.” He added, jokingly. 

“I’m not worried. My file isn’t in here.” I smiled. “Neither is Fin’s.”

“I know. Yes, I looked. Don’t seem so surprised.” He gestured for me to follow him. “This is what we’re here for.” He held open his arms. Any file the S.S.R. or S.H.I.E.L.D. had on Strucker would be here, sitting neatly on a shelf. 

“Analog. Wow Tony, I didn’t know you were capable.” I helped him load the boxes onto a cart and take them back to the lab. We looked through the files in silence for what felt like hours.

  
“Known associates.” Steve opened the box and started handing out the files inside. “Well, Strucker had a lot of friends.”

  
“Well, these people are all horrible.” Bruce admonished with a cursory glance. We all flipped through the files, none of us sure what it was we were looking for. 

“Wait. I know that guy.” Tony reached out for the file Banner had just opened, he passed it to him.” From back in the day. He operates off the African coast, black market arms.”

I didn’t even have to glance over to see the look Steve was giving Tony. 

“There are conventions, alright? You meet people, I didn't sell him anything.” Tony passed the photo around as he continued, letting us all see the face of a man named Ulysses Klaue. “He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, it was all very Ahab."

“What’s this?” Thor pointed at one of the photos, clearly taken while Klaue was under surveillance. 

“Uh, it’s a tattoo.” Tony sounded unsure. “I don’t think he had it…”

“No.” Thor cut him off and pointed again to the picture. “Those are tattoos, this is a brand.”

I stood to get a better look, Thor was right. I hadn’t noticed it at first glance but there was an undeniable mark branded into the side of Klaue’s neck. More importantly, it was one I'd seen before. 

“I’ve seen that before. It’s Wakandan.” Everyone looked at me expectantly. “It’s how they mark thieves, and even then it had to have been a big deal for him to earn that. They don’t brand you for stealing bread and livestock. It had to be serious.”

“If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods…” Tony’s face told me that he understood. The kind of thing you’d have to steal to be branded was something valuable. 

  
“I thought your father said he got the last of it?” Steve catching on quickly. 

  
“I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?” Bruce joined us at the table, not used to being the last one to put the pieces together. I heard Fin moving beside me as she picked up Cap’s shield, holding it up for Bruce as she answered. 

“The strongest metal on earth.”

**[Fin - 15:42 May 11th, 2015 - CHURCHILL]**

We boarded a salvage ship off the African coast as quietly as possible. I don’t think we would have known which ship to find Klaue on if Ultron hadn’t beaten us here. The workers were climbing over each other to escape the wreck as we landed, I couldn’t understand most of their words in the panic but I did catch ‘evacuate’ and ‘enhanced’. I wasn’t looking forward to another fight with the Maximoff’s but doing it later wasn’t going to be any better than now, so why not get it over with. Voices echoed off the metal walls of the cargo ship and I hoped we were getting closer, it was hard to be sure with the sound distortion. 

"Keep your friends rich and your enemies rich, and wait to find out which is which." Ultron. He sounded more put together than the last time we’d crossed paths but I wasn’t going to soon forget that voice.  
  


“Stark.” Klaue said it so confidently I thought we’d been blown, had Tony gone in? That wasn’t the plan. I leaned out of the doorway to peak in the direction of the voices. Tony wasn’t down there. 

“What?” Ultron sounded offended. 

  
“Tony Stark used to say that...to me. You're one of his.” Klaue’s calm demeanor was gone, the thought of Tony being behind all of this had him paranoid. He was going to bolt. I started to step out of the shadows when Ultron moved.   
  


“What?! I'm not...!” He grabbed Klaue by the arm, wrenching it up. The man with him drew his side arm but the red witch stopped him in his tracks. “I'm not. You think I'm one of Stark's puppets, his hollow men? I mean look at me, do I look like Iron Man? Stark is nothing!” The anger in Ultron’s tone surprised me, almost as much as his next move surprised Klaue. As Ultron spoke he gestured with his free hand, severing Klaue’s arm without hesitation. He dropped it and it hit the floor with a heavy thud of meat. That’s all it was now. Meat. 

“I'm sorry. I am so... Ooh, I'm sure that's going to be okay. I'm sorry, it's just I don't understand. Don't compare me with Stark!” The words of apology would have sounded more sincere if he hadn’t kicked the now one armed-arms dealer down the stairs. ”It's a thing with me. Stark is, he's a sickness!”

I'd held out some optimistic hope that Klaue and Ultron would somehow take each other out before we had to get involved, but apparently Tony couldn’t take waiting any more. 

  
“Ahh, Junior.” He flew down from the balcony above, landing on the metal catwalk between us and Ultron. Thor and Steve walked out of the shadows to flank him while Elena and I held our positions. No use letting them know where everyone was. “You're gonna break your old man's heart.”

  
“If I have to.” All of Ultron’s attention was on Tony now. Natasha signaled and the 4 of us spread out around the landing, making sure everyone had an angle so that none of our new friends could escape.   
  


“We don't have to break anything.” Thor spoke, but his tone said that he wanted to break things. I couldn’t disagree. 

  
“Clearly you've never made an omelet.” Ultron quipped. I couldn't help but roll by eyes in mild annoyance. 

  
“He beat me by one second.” Tony pipped in. He was lucky Ultron had upgraded his look, otherwise I'm not sure I'd be able to tell the two apart on personality alone.

  
“Ah, this is funny, Mr. Stark. It's what, comfortable? Like old times?” The Maximoff brother spoke, looking at the weapons littering the cargo ship. It was the first look at him I'd really gotten. He was young, they both were...younger than I'd expected anyway. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. Bad guys were bad guys and Ultron was a bad guy. If they were helping him, so were they.

  
“This was never my life.” Tony tried to defend himself but it was no use, they’d made up their mind about him.   
  


“You two can still walk away from this.” Steve addressed the twins, trying to give them a way out. Trying to let them know that there were options for them still.

  
“Oh, we will.” The girl twin reassured him confidently.   
  


“I know you've suffered.” He tried again, stepping forward and putting on his most sympathetic face. I don’t care what his file says, his greatest strength was giving a shit about other people and he had that long before Dr. Erskine. Ultron’s disgusted gagging sound told me that he disagreed.   
  


“Uuughh! Captain America. God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war.” I watched Steve’s shoulders tense at the comment, his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth. I wished I was down there with him, wished I were close enough to reassure him, but I wasn’t. “I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but…”

“If you believe in peace, then let us keep it.” Thor tried to get us back on track.   
  


“I think you're confusing peace with quiet.” Ultron stepped forward, the distance between both sides growing smaller. 

  
“Yuh-huh. What's the Vibranium for?” Tony interrupted.   
  


“I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan!” 

I saw Tony open his mouth to continue the banter but before he could find the words the metaphorical shit hit the fan. Ultron pulled Tony to him somehow and the remaining iron legion bots held Thor and Cap back. He blasted Tony into the metal door behind them but he was barely phased. I met Elena’s eyes across the room as Ultron and Stark bashed into each other, starting a knock down drag out fight that seemed very personal. There wasn’t much I could do against a flying superbot with Tony’s personality so I focused my attention on the rest of the fight. Thor and Steve were outnumbered, the bots weren’t much of a hindrance but the Maximoff’s had them on the ropes. The boy was a blur, I couldn’t keep him in sight, but the girl...I watched her knock Steve onto his ass without even touching him. That was unacceptable. No one knocked Cap on his ass but me. I was running for the railing when I heard gunfire. 

“Klaue called for backup.” Elena hissed over comms, I could tell she was fighting. 

“I noticed.” Nat added helpfully as a group of armed workers rounded the corner and spotted me. I turned to run but there were more in the opposite doorway. Shit. I dropped to the floor as they opened fire, hitting each other. These were not trained soldiers, which made it worse that they would probably die here. 

I rolled to the edge of the balcony and dropped to the level below, the metal reverberated under my boots but I managed to stay on my feet. I could see Clint on the top level, picking men off as I ran toward the center of the chaos. It was reassuring, he and Nat could handle most of these guys on their own. I watched as Steve threw his shield and a blur of color knocked him backwards. Not a second later the same blur caught up to Thor’s hammer. I couldn’t see what happened exactly, but given the fact that the fast twin was next seen falling into the cargo below with said hammer, I think it is safe to say he was not worthy. Steve made his way to the boy, knocking him back down when he got to his feet. 

“Stay down, kid” Steve was being too easy on him, he should have knocked him out cold. I looked around, I'd lost sight of the sister in my attempt to keep Steve in sight. “Thor! Status?”

  
“The girl tried to warp my mind. Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty.” It sounded like Thor found her. I thought about going after her instead, but as he’d said, he was mighty. I told myself Thor had it handled as I leapt over the bottom railing, landing on two of the armed men. Steve took down another before the blur threw him into the stairs where his sister was waiting. She reached down for him and I yelled to get her attention. 

“STEVE!” It was the only word in my head at the moment, but it worked. The girl looked up at me as a red haze touched his eyes and he stumbled. With a wicked grin she stepped back, both twins disappearing into the shadows. 

  
  


**[Steve - 16:07 May 11th, 2015 - CHURCHILL]**

_Full Dress Hop - Gene Krups_

_The lights in the dance hall were low, everything was smokey and atmospheric with the red striped walls and big band music. Everyone was smiling and laughing like they couldn’t hear the gunfire and artillery in the distance. The flashbulb of a camera blinds me and I can’t help but wince. When a second flashes beside me I jump and it sends my heart racing, uncertain if the flash was from a camera or a grenade. I try to keep calm as I continue to walk through the crowd. Beside me, a man is holding a cloth napkin to another man’s chest and I can’t tell if the stain running down his shirt is blood or wine. When I look back at the dance floor the faces are still smiling but I can’t tell if people are dancing or fighting. The music sounds almost frantic, the gunfire outside is getting louder. The danger is getting closer and no one in this room seems to hear it._

_“Are you ready for our dance?” I hear Peggy’s voice and turn to look at her. At first it’s Fin standing there but when I blink it’s Peggy, the picture taking a minute to find the face that matches the voice it had spoken in. The longer I stare at her face the more I can’t see whose face it is and I look back at the crowd instead. “...The war's over, Steve. We can go home. Imagine it!” This time it’s both their voices, speaking in unison._

_I suddenly find myself alone. The room is dead quiet, no music, not even the sounds of war outside. When I blink I can feel someone in my arms, dancing with me, but when my eyes are open I'm still alone._   
  


**[Elena - 16:19 May 11th, 2015 - CHURCHILL]**

_Piano sonata no. 14 - Beethoven_

“Steve!” Fin yelled it loud enough that I didn’t need the comms to hear her, even from across the ship. I swung my fist into another man’s face and felt his jaw break, if Fin needed my help I'd have to get rid of these guys first. 

“What happened?” I asked no one in particular, I'd been cornered in one of the halls as I made my way down and lost sight of the main room a few minutes ago. I could hear the crashing and the yelling but I had been a little preoccupied trying to chase down Klaue. 

“I’m not sure” I was relieved when Fin was the one to answer. “I saw the Olsen twins knock him down. I'm headed to him.”

“Let me know if you need me.” 

“You know I will.” She answered as I knocked away another one of the men, realizing at some point I'd lost Klaue in the madness. Damn it! I kicked away from the man nearest me and ducked through a doorway, hoping to put some distance between me and the mob. As I slammed the heavy door closed I felt a gust of wind behind me that made the hair on my neck stand on end. I turned to see what it was, the unfamiliar scents of a stranger filled my nose as my vision went red around the edges. 

_I'm sitting in my dad’s pick up. The worn bench seat is cracked from the heat but I don’t mind. When I look up I see my dad driving, my mother’s arm is across the back of the seat, her hand resting on his shoulder as he looks at her. I felt safe, warm...loved. I opened my mouth to tell them I love them but the world outside the truck had grown dark and angry. My parent’s expressions went from content to concerned as the first snowflakes landed on the windshield. I hear the tires squealing and close my eyes, waiting for an impact that doesn’t come._

_When I open my eyes I'm outside of the truck. I'm looking back at it’s crumpled frame as James stands on the other side. I watch him put a hand over my father’s face and squeeze. I can hear the bones fracturing as he pushes the windshield glass further into his flesh, blood running between his fingers. He lets my father go, the body slumping forward against the steering wheel as James walks to the other side. My mother tries to run but the door won’t open, James reaches out and bends the handle out of shape to make sure it stays that way._

_He pushes the crumpled truck further off the road, I can hear the metal groaning as it bends and my mother screams as she watches him push a snow dusted tree over the vehicle, obscuring it from sight. I can feel the burning in my eyes and I try to blink away the tears but I can’t stop them from falling. I feel a warm hand brush them from my cheek and when I open my eyes James is standing in front of me. He takes my hand in his, laying the other on my waist. My father’s blood stains everything he touches but I don’t want him to stop. I hear a voice, it sounds desperate and pleading and it takes a moment to realize it’s mine._

_“Don’t go. Please.” I squeeze his hand and he returns the gesture before vanishing, leaving me alone once again._

_I look around for where he might have gone, searching for tracks in the snow or a scent, but the only thing I find is a graveyard...I’m not sure you could call it that exactly, not with only three headstones, but I knew that’s what it was. I didn’t need to read the names to recognize the markers. Two belonged to my parents. The third belonged to Phil Coulson. They were all people who’d loved me and who I'd buried. I closed my eyes, wishing to be back in the truck with my parents. Wishing to be back in James’s arms. When I opened them, neither wish had come true. Instead I saw my friends. Fin was leaning against her father’s grave, at first I thought she was sleeping but the blood trickling out of her mouth and onto her unmoving chest told me otherwise._

_James sat on my mother’s grave, leaned forward on his knees, staring unblinking at Steve who sat against the third gravestone. Steve is the only one who isn’t dead, I can see his chest rise and fall with labored breaths. I can hear his heart beating but it’s too loud, I start to walk towards him to see if I can help but the sound is in my head and it won’t stop. I realize that even though I'm walking I'm not getting any closer and I look down at my feet. When I do, I see my own heart in my hands, beating in time to the deafening sound that I can’t escape from. I want to throw it away from me, to make it quiet, but I can’t so instead I look away. I look past the tombstones, trying to see anything but the tragedy around me but beyond there is only more destruction. Bodies litter the familiar plain, bodies of friends new and old. I can see Agent Hill and Director Fury, As well as Sam...all dead. T’Challa lays motionless, surrounded by the dora milaje, some dead and some weeping. Okoye among the latter. Bruce and Natasha are there too, injured but alive and the overwhelming sense of helplessness consumes me._

_The sound that tears out of my throat isn’t a scream or a sob; It’s a howl, and I feel it in my bones._

  
  


**[Fin - 16:34 May 11th, 2015 - CHURCHILL]**

_Requiem, K. 626: Lacrimosa - Mozart_

I finally got to Steve, he’d gotten up on his own and started stumbling away but he wasn’t answering me when I called out to him. He dropped his helmet and I picked it up as I heard a howl from Elena somewhere in the ship. If she’d shifted, she needed back up. I picked up my pace, catching up to Steve, who still wouldn’t look at me. I needed to get him out of danger, I couldn’t help her if he was still walking around like this.

“Come on Cap, we’ve got work to do.” I coaxed, trying to get him to acknowledge me. Out of nowhere I felt a strange sense of vertigo, the world tilted in my view and I grabbed at anything I could to brace myself as my knees buckled.. 

_My vision went red, then black and I tried to push myself up but I couldn't move. I struggled and could feel the restraints across my body. I pushed against them, only to be met with pain. This was a familiar dream and that made it recognizable as such. I vaguely recalled the Maximoff girl’s ability and cursed myself. I'd let her get too close._

_I resigned myself to the nightmare, I knew the routine. I would wait, there would be needles, then light, then pain and I would wake up. I just had to wait. I kept my eyes shut and took slow deep breaths but the needles didn’t come. I felt a low pressure in my abdomen and squeezed my eyes tighter, I didn’t need to know what was happening, I needed to wake up._

_The male voice that always spoke to me in my dreams started talking, but I could hear him clearly now. He spoke in german but the words that I heard were unmistakably english._

_“When I am done you will be the perfect weapon, Schatz.” he crooned. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed any longer, I turned my head away from the voice and tried to look around. The room was dim, not dark but it seemed like it was filtered through layers of dust and time. I couldn't focus on anything well enough to see past the blinding surgical light focused on my body. Feeling small tugs at my skin I finally turned toward him. I wasn’t surprised to see the face of Johann Schmitt, my father, leaning over me. My body was splayed open from the ribs down, his gloved hands covered in my blood. I realized that, while the body was mine, it was much younger. This body was small and weak, it was the body of a child and I realized the memories I had been hiding from myself were hidden for a reason. He smiled up at me._

_“You are nearly done!” He reached up and touched my cheek with a gloved hand, leaving a streak of red in its wake. I felt the voice leave my throat but I didn’t recognize the child answering,_

_“Yes father.”_

_He grinned and started to walk away, his voice muffled in the distance and I lost the ability to understand him as the needles pierced my skin. I didn’t scream, I welcomed it. I wanted to leave this nightmare. The needles delivered liquid fire through my veins and my back arched off the table, testing my bonds. The lights around me brightened and the fire turned to shards of glass, ripping at my insides and knitting them back together just as fast, it was agony and I felt the scream I'd been fighting tear out of my throat as Schmitt laughed. The pain and light blinded me, and then it was gone._

_I blinked, trying to clear my vision and soon the light dimmed enough for me to see. I wasn’t on the table anymore, but I didn’t know where I was either. I'd expected to wake up in the Churchill, this was not that. Glancing around I saw I was on a hill, standing under a tree. The grass was soft and bright, dotted with flowers. I looked down at myself and saw my adult body in a soft cream dress. I smoothed the skirt, not knowing what to expect. This felt real, it felt more real than the nightmare and I knew that was a memory, this was something new._

_I saw movement to my left and turned to face it, as the figure drew closer I recognized Steve. He was walking toward me at a determined pace, his eyes not leaving my face and I felt my breath catch. I knew I was nervous because my hands were sweating and the closer he came the faster my heart raced. When he got close I smiled and opened my mouth to say his name but before I could his hand slammed around my throat. The force knocked me off my feet and before I knew it I was flat on my back with him kneeling over me, his fingers pinning me to the grass by my neck. I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at his hand and tried to throw my body out of his grip but he put a knee across my hips and pinned me in place. He leaned down, his face over mine and I saw the rage in his eyes and he squeezed tighter._

_He didn’t say anything, didn’t tell me what I'd done to upset him, didn’t ask me to fix it. I searched his face for answers and watched as it morphed back and forth into Jack Rollins’ face, then Q’s. Every man wearing the same grimace. I tried to dig my fingers into the earth around me, looking for any purchase to get leverage but instead of grass my fingertips touched cold marble and when I looked there was a knife in my hand._

_‘Be willing to kill to survive, and you will always be in control.’_

_The same voice that had saved me from Erickson and Q urged me to save myself again, this time i knew it was my father's voice. I squeezed the knife in my hand and looked back at the man cutting off my air. His face was red, as though he was holding his breath with me, but it was still Steve._

_Steve holding me down. Steve fighting me. Steve squeezing my throat so tightly that I could feel my own heartbeat as it fought to push blood past his hands. My vision started to fade and_ _I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see him like this. As soon as my eyes closed the pressure released and my throat burned as I gulped down air. I felt wetness drip onto my face and wiped it away before opening my eyes again. When I did, Steve was still there, looking down at me. His expression changed from anger to shock as his fingers wrapped around the handle of the small paring knife that protruded from his neck._

When I came to, I was gulping in air as though I'd been drowning moments before. Barton stood over me, his hands on my shoulders holding my steady. His mouth was moving, he was talking to me and I tried to hear what he was saying but all I could hear was the scratching in the back of my own skull, like an animal trying to get out. 

“FINLAY.” He shook me and I finally heard something real. He must have seen something change in my expression because he looked relieved. “You with me?”

“I think so.” I managed weakly. “Elena?” I asked, remembering the howling. 

“I got her on the jet, Steve too.” He reassured me. “Your turn.”

He got me onto the jet where the others were waiting, everyone sat in silence and no one was looking at one another. I saw Steve sitting alone, an empty chair across from him that I assume was meant for me but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself walk towards him. Instead I found Elena and joined her on the floor. She was still a wolf but I could see the look in her eyes, it was the same as everyone else’s. 

“How's the team?” I heard Maria asking and I wondered how much she knew.   
  


“Everyone's...we took a hit. We'll shake it off.” Tony answered her and I couldn't stop myself from looking at everyone individually. I hadn’t realized that the little witch had gotten in so many of our heads but I could see it on their faces.   
  


“Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here.” Maria advised.   
  


“So, run and hide?” He wanted to go home, we all did. It didn’t seem like it was an option. 

  
“Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer.” She sounded apologetic.   
  


“Neither do we.” He shut off the monitor, there wasn’t anything else to say.


	6. Over My Head

**[Steve - 06:12 May 12th, 2015 - SAFE HOUSE]**

Barton had called it a safe house, but I'd been to government safe houses before. If this was one, I'd eat my shield. Regardless, if Barton had brought us here, it would be a good place. I trusted him. 

“Honey, I'm home.” A woman walked cautiously around the corner, understandably shocked to see all of us standing in her living room, but she looked happy to see Barton. She walked to him as he apologized, greeting him with a kiss. “Hi. Company. Sorry I didn't call ahead.”

  
“Hey.” She looked over his shoulder at us. 

“This is an agent of some kind.” Tony explained to no one in particular.  
  


“Gentleman, this is Laura.” Clint gestured to the woman.   
  


“I know all your names.” She waved awkwardly as we continued to gawk.

“Ooh, incoming.” I heard the rapid footsteps on the wood floor before I saw the two kids run around the corner, making a Beeline for Barton. 

“Dad!” He picked up the little girl when she got to him.

“These are...smaller agents.” Tony kept trying. This seemed so surreal I wasn’t sure if I'd actually woken up from the dream the Maximoff girl had put in my head. I'd known Clint for years and never knew he had a wife...kids...Suddenly the consequences of him being hurt on our last Sokovia mission hit me in the gut. What if we’d gotten him killed out there?  
  


“Did you bring Auntie Nat?” The little girls’ words snapped me back to the moment. Did that little girl just say ‘Auntie Nat’?  
  


“Why don't you hug her and find out?” Natasha stepped out from behind me and the little girl rushed towards her. Nat lifted her up in a hug and carried her away, both of them smiling. I was glad to see something pulling Natasha out of her daze. 

  
“Sorry for barging in on you.” I added hastily, remembering my manners. 

  
“Yeah, we would have called ahead, but we were busy having no idea that you existed.” Tony apologized...in his own way.   
  


“Yeah, well Fury helped me set this up when I joined. He kept it off S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files, I'd like to keep it that way. I figure it's a good place to lay low.” I couldn’t disagree. Everyone kept talking as Thor got Elena’s attention and pulled her out of the room.   
  


“Thor.” I followed them out the door.  
  


“I saw something in that dream. I need answers, I won't find them here.” He was speaking to her urgently, like she could help him. 

“You’re going too?” I looked at Elena, who shrugged. 

“I think everyone could use a little space right now. If he needs my help...I could use the distraction.” It made sense and part of me was jealous I didn't have a distraction of my own. 

I nodded, Thor held her around the waist as he started to spin his hammer, I watched them fly away and turned back to the house. I saw Fin inside, crouching down to talk to Barton’s daughter. She was smiling at the kid but the expression didn’t reach her eyes, she was still haunted by whatever visions had been put in her head. I wanted to talk to her, make sure she was alright, but I couldn’t shake my own ghosts. I watched her with Barton’s kid for a moment longer, resolving myself to step through the doorway only to be stopped by Peggy’s voice in my head. 

“We can go home.”

Home. What was home anymore? I'd always thought home was family, kids...but this wasn’t a world for that anymore. I turned away from the door, I heard the little girl laughing at something Fin said but couldn’t make myself join them. Instead I walked back to the jet, needing a moment alone. I'm not sure how long I sat there, or how long my absence went unnoticed, but I couldn’t sit and do nothing for long. I found the spare clothes I kept on the jet and changed before walking around the farmhouse looking for something useful to do. Eventually I came across a woodpile that needed splitting, I picked up the ax and started channeling my aggravation into manual labor. 

  
  


**[Fin- 11:47 May 12th, 2015 - SAFE HOUSE]**

_Over My Head - Asher_

I'd turned down the offer of a shower, but I'd taken Laura up on the clean clothes. They weren't my style and fit awkwardly but they were comfortable. I sat on the couch, looking absently out the window where the kids were running around with Clint and trying to process everything in my head. Pieces of the vision kept flashing in my eyes; Steve attacking me, Steve bleeding out because I stabbed him. On the surface I understood what it was, I'd had enough therapy to translate the subconscious fear that I tried to hide from myself. I knew who I'd been born to be, what I'd been born to be. It was why I'd fought so hard against a relationship with him in the first place. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt him and I didn’t want to put him in a position where he might have to choose between me and the greater good, should something happen to make me go against him. I didn’t know the extent of what my father had done to me, I could never be sure there wasn’t something in my head that hydra could exploit. 

_“You will be my perfect monster”_ My father’s voice echoed. I pressed my fists into my eyes until I saw stars, trying to shut him out. Quieting the voice was the best I could manage, unfortunately there was no getting him out. 

“Hey.” Laura had come to check on me, she handed me a warm mug of coffee and I felt tears burn in my eyes at the gesture. I felt like my entire being was a raw nerve, every emotion exposed and on the surface, ready to overreact at the smallest thing. 

“Thanks” I took it and sipped, it was sweet with little marshmallows floating on top.

“Sorry I didn't know how you liked it. But I haven’t met a woman yet who turns down chocolate when they’re having a bad day…” She trailed off, I opened my mouth to tell her it was fine but she kept talking. “Are you okay? You seem...everyone seems to have been hit pretty hard but you seem to be having trouble shaking it off.”

“I am, but I'll be alright. I've been dealing with the monsters in my head longer than most of them. I think already having them there made this harder to ignore. It’s harder to tell yourself it was a mind game played by an enemy when the things she shows you have always been there. They’re just louder now.” I rubbed the back of my head absently, a subconscious scratch at the itch that wanted me to acknowledge it. I didn’t have time to open that door right now. “Thanks for the coffee. It’s good.” I tried to change the subject. 

“You’re welcome.” She smiled and left me alone.

  
  
  


**[Steve- 12:16 May 12th, 2015 - SAFE HOUSE]**

“Thor didn’t say where he was going for answers?” For some reason Tony had decided to join me in my attempt at aggravated solitude. I don’t think he understood the concept of not wanting to talk, if he did I wasn’t sure he was capable. 

“Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things.” I couldn’t stop my eyes from going to the window behind Barton and his son, Fin sat inside alone. “I was hoping Thor would be the exception.” 

“Yeah, give him time. We don’t know what the Maximoff kid showed him.”

“ _Earth's Mightiest Heroes_...pulled us apart like cotton candy.” I shook my head in disbelief as I took another log from the pile. 

“Seems like you walked away all right.” it sounded like an accusation. 

“Is that a problem?” I knew casting judgement on my every move was just Tony being Tony but now wasn’t the time. 

  
“I don't trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old fashioned.” Tony split his wood, emphasizing his words.   
  


“Well let's just say you haven't seen it yet.” I was starting to get mad, Just because I didn’t project my problems onto everyone around me it didn’t mean I didn’t have any.   
  


“You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?” Great. We’d reached the part of the conversation where Tony explained things that I already knew.   
  


“Well I guess you'd know. Whether you tell us is a bit of a question.” I offered helpfully. I was still blaming him for this Ultron bullshit, whether he decided to own up to it or not.   
  


“Banner and I were doing research.” Now Tony was the one being defensive.   
  


“That would affect the team.” I wasn’t sure how many times we could have the same conversation.  
  


“That would end the team. Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the "why" we fight, so we can end the fight, so we get to go home?” I was trying to keep my cool but when he said ‘go home’ images of the dance hall flashed through my mind. I'd been keeping the intrusions out since I'd started working but there they were, ready to pop back in with the slightest provocation. I didn’t realize that I'd ripped the log I'd been holding in half until I saw Tony’s reaction. 

“Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time.” 

  
  


**[Elena - 13:23 May 12th, 2015 - NORN CAVE]**

_The Eye of Odin - Trevor Morris_

“So. This is it.” I looked around the cave, it didn’t seem like anything special but the fact that I was literally flown here by the Norse god of thunder gave it some credibility. “The water of sight.”

“In every realm there’s a reflection, if the water spirits accept me I can return to my dream and find what I missed.” He knelt by the water. I didn’t know what he’d been shown but if this worked, if this somehow got us answers and helped us defeat Ultron, I was on board. Unfortunately I'd also read the stories, and nothing helpful in Norse lore comes without a price. 

“Men who enter that water...the legends don’t end well.” I pointed out. 

“I am not just a man.” he laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Fear not, for I am--”

“Mighty?” I guessed. His face was incredulous.“You may have mentioned it once or twice.”

“Yes, well.” He released me and moved toward the pool. “Hopefully we can find out what we need before they consume me completely.”

“This is a new kind of dangerous.” I looked into the dark water, glad not to be the one going in. I heard him speak again but couldn't make out the words. “What?” 

“The thing I fear contains the thing I need.” He pulled a familiar flask from his pocket. 

“What’s that for?” I wasn’t sure now was the time but I wasn’t the one about to jump into a pool of water spirits. 

“It’s for me. Everything I fear is scary.” He took a swig and started to remove his armor, I found a rock to look at instead and I could have sworn I heard him laughing at my attempt to give him some privacy. I waited until I heard him slide into the water before turning back to look at him. He’d submerged himself before resurfacing and his long blond hair clung to his muscled shoulders. I didn’t have time to admire the view before a voice that wasn’t his own started cackling through him. I fumbled to get my phone out, hitting the record button in case I wasn’t able to remember every detail of this on my own. 

“ _Fools. All of you.”_ His irises were solid white, only the pupil remained, and he cringed as lighting arched through his body. I took a step back, making sure I wasn’t touching any of the water. _“This one’s special, thinking we won’t consume him.”_

‘How do we stop Ultron.” I wanted to get our answers fast so we could leave. This place was making my hair stand on end, although that could have just been the electricity. 

“ _Sacrifice._ ” 

“What kind.” I was afraid I wouldn’t like the answer. 

“ _Human, of course._ ” Another jolt of lighting pulsed through the body and I realized it was Thor fighting the norn from the inside. “ _Although we count the dead, and they are legion. The stones' thoughts crawl to it’s brilliance and you to your end._ ”

“The stone? From Loki’s scepter?”

_“IT WAS NEVER HIS! It is of the six. The infinite six, they cannot be joined nor kept apart.”_ his body convulsed as the voice laughed through gritted teeth. “ _This one fights us._ ” 

I couldn’t understand what it said next, but it lunged towards the edge of the pool and I scrambled on the slick rocks, keeping a grip on the recording devices as I asked about the stone again. 

“ _The mind stone that rules perception, moulds the minds of monsters. It carved out your friend’s will and still you don’t see?_ ” They knew that the stone controlled Barton.

“If Ultron has the mind stone…” I postulated. 

“ _Oh no, your enemies are closer._ ” The voice laughed “ _Fear the father’s ambition, and brilliance only blinds.”_ Lightning sparked through the water more violently this time. I was ready to get out of here. 

“THOR!” I shouted his name, hoping he could get himself out of the pool. A final jolt rocked through his body and when he opened his eyes they were his own, but he didn’t move. He sat in the water, weakened. “Thor.” I knelt at the water’s edge. He didn’t look up. Son of a bitch. 

I kicked off my shoes and heavier layers of clothing, bracing myself for what may come. As I sank to my neck in the black water I realized it was warm and made me feel like I was floating in nothing. I moved smoothly through the water, hoping to keep both it and the water spirits unstirred as I reached him. I felt them poking at me, their magic looking for a way into my mind but I wasn’t here for their visions. I'd had enough of that for a while. I touched Thor’s shoulder and he looked at me like he’d forgotten I was there. 

“Elena.” his voice was filled with relief as he leaned over to embrace me, lifting me partly out of the water as he did. “They showed me so much, we must go!” We were out of the water before I could respond, he set me on the ground and started walking. 

“Thor!” I shouted after him, picking up his discarded clothes. He turned back to me before I could avert my gaze and presented me with a view of a less familiar hammer than mjolnir. I shut my eyes and wordlessly held out his clothes. 

“Right.” He took them from me and I listened as he dressed. “We can go now.” 

  
  


**[Fin- 17:53 May 12th, 2015 - SAFE HOUSE]**

I'd helped Laura make dinner, it was the least I could do to thank her for letting us all intrude like this. Not to mention she’d let me sit and stew I silence for I don’t know how many hours. At some point Fury had shown up, he had thoughts on the situation and I should have been listening but I was too busy wondering when Elena and Thor would be back. I needed to talk to her, needed her to run interference between me and Cap until I could pull myself together. I didn’t think I was going to attack him unprovoked but I wasn’t as confident in my ability to hide my anxiousness either. Even before we’d gotten close he’d noticed when I'd been jumpy in Franz Josef Land, he’d realized on the ride home when I'd been too worked up to sleep. If he’d noticed then, he would notice now and noticing meant questions. I wasn’t ready to answer those questions, not to myself and especially not to him. 

“What about Ultron himself?” I felt myself tense at the sound of Steve’s voice. Natasha, sitting across from me at the table, pretended not to notice. When the rest of the group had gotten up from the table to talk she’d stayed sitting with me, at first I thought it was because Clint’s daughter Lily was there but now I wasn’t sure. 

“Ah. He's easy to track, he's everywhere. Guy's multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit. Still doesn't help us get an angle on any of his plans though.” Fury washed a glass and poured himself a drink. 

  
“He still going after launch codes?” Tony asked from the den, not bothering to stop throwing darts long enough to give his undivided attention.   
  


“Yes, he is, but he's not making any headway.” I knew Fury was talking but the white noise was back in my head, I looked at my glass of tea and became very interested in the way the lemon slice floated with the ice cubes. I was trying to focus on something real, something small. Something not inside my head. I tried to remember the exercises Whitehall had recommended when I'd first started having panic attacks, that was the closest thing I could relate to this and even if he did turn out to be hydra, he had been a shrink. 

I heard Steve ask about something called ‘Nexus’ as I watched condensation roll down my glass. I took deep calming breaths, hoping no one had noticed. The breathing helped slow my racing heart but it did nothing to quiet my brain. I looked around the room for the innocuous things. I named them as I saw them. Pink dish towel. Blue dish soap. Red lamp shade. I closed my eyes and listened. I heard Barton’s kids upstairs, the crickets outside, the chair beside me creaking as Nick sat down. I opened my eyes and focused on him, actually hearing him for the first time since dinner. 

  
“Outwit the platinum bastard.”

  
“Steve doesn't like that kind of talk.” Nat raised an eyebrow as she looked past me.   


“You know what, Romanoff?” I heard the levity in his voice as she grinned back at him and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders let go. Nat was trying to keep everyone calm to help me stay calm. Bless her. I was mad at myself for letting anyone notice but I was still grateful. 

“So what does he want?” Fury asked the question we’d all been asking ourselves. I couldn’t sit still anymore and walked my dishes to the sink. Barton intercepted before I got there and took the dishes from me, motioning for me to stay. I leaned against the counter on the opposite side of the sink, crossing my arms.   
  


“To become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies.” Steve guessed.

  
“Person bodies. The human form is inefficient, biologically speaking, we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it.” Tony sounded like he was onto something but he hadn’t pinpointed what exactly. 

  
“When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed.” Nat added. She was the person in the room I was most in agreement with at the moment. 

  
“They don't need to be protected, they need to evolve.” Bruce looked down at the butterfly painting Lily had given Nat. “Ultron's going to evolve.” 

  
“How?” Nick demanded.   
  


“Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?” Bruce asked and no one answered. Steve glanced around the room before speaking up. 

“I'll take Natasha and Clint.” For a second I couldn’t decide if the emotion I felt was jealousy or relief when he didn’t ask me to come with him. Either way he was right, I needed more time, I would ride back to the tower with Nick and Bruce.

  
  


**[Steve- 06:43 May 12th, 2015 - U-GIN]**

The lab was destroyed, equipment popped with sparks as I ran by. I saw bodies on the floor as I passed, there was no helping them now. I had to find the cradle. 

“Dr. Cho!” She was propped up against some equipment, bleeding but alive. I grabbed a nearby towel and pressed it to the wound in her shoulder. She put her hand on mine, gratefully. 

  
“He's uploading himself into the body.” She managed weakly.   
  


”Where?” I started to stand but she grabbed my arm to stop me.   
  


“The real power is inside the Cradle. The gem, its power is uncontainable. You can't just blow it up. You have to get the Cradle to Stark.” She was frightened, that much was clear, but I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got my hands on the cradle.   
  


“First I have to find it.” I needed her to let me go. I could hear sirens in the distance, someone else would be able to help her. I had my own job to do.   
  


“Go.” She let go of my arm and I made my way down the path of destruction left by Ultron.   
  


“Did you guys copy that?” I asked Nat and Barton over comms.   
  


“We did.” Barton answered first. 

“I got a private jet taking off, across town, no manifest. That could be him.”  
  


“There. It's the truck from the lab. Right above you, Cap. On the loop by the bridge. It's them. I got three with the Cradle, one in the cab. I could take out the driver.” Barton sounded calm over comms but I knew we all wanted this over with. I had to find a way up.  
  


“Negative!” I answered as I climbed one of the maintenance ladders to the bridge. “If that truck crashes, the gem could level the city. We need to draw out Ultron.” I looked around, I was on the wrong loop. I watched as the truck drove on the street below, I had to time this right. 

I jumped onto the freight container, landing with a thud. I found my balance and slid to the back, lowering myself onto the doors to try and open them. A blast of energy flung the door open and slammed me into the side of the truck. It rang my bell but I held on. When the door swung closed a second blast blew the top hinge off. I felt myself go airborne for a second and I scrambled for purchase as I landed, barely catching the door being dragged along behind the vehicle. 

“Well, he’s definitely unhappy.” I relayed to my backup. “I’m gonna try to keep him that way.”

“You’re not a match for him, Cap.” Barton offered some words of encouragement.

“Thanks, Barton.”

I pulled myself up only to be blasted again, this time there was nothing to hold on to and the windshield of the following car caught me but didn’t stop. When another vehicle started passing I grabbed onto it, throwing myself back onto the roof of Ultron’s commandeered truck. Ultron came up to meet me. 

“You know what's in that Cradle?” He tried another energy blast but I was ready for it, I turned and it bounced off the shield. “The power to make real change, and that terrifies you.”

“I wouldn't call it a comfort.” He wasn’t wrong, but I had worse fears rolling around my head at the moment. Fears I wouldn’t get to face if Ultron destroyed the world. I took the shield off my back and threw it at him, catching it on the bounce back as he kept trying to hit me. The shield stuck in his chest and he pulled it out, throwing it into the street before hitting me square in the chest with concentrated energy. I rolled backwards onto the cab, catching the top of the windshield as I fell. The bot driving the truck tried to punch me through the glass but I managed to roll out of the way. 

“We got a window. Four, three...give 'em hell.” Barton counted down over the comms, I heard one of the bikes we’d had on the quinjet rev in the background. 

“I'm always picking up after you boys.” Nat quipped. They kept talking but it was hard to keep up with the conversation while Ultron was hitting me. He had me by the throat when I heard the high pitched whine of the electric motorcycle. She threw the shield up to me and it magnetized to my bracer. I'd been happy with the leather straps when Tony had the idea to replace them but this was an improvement. I would never admit that to Tony, but his ego was fine without my input. 

I hit Ultron in the face with my shield and he dropped me, I got another hit in before they threw me onto another car’s windshield. Before I could jump off the ground under the car shot upwards, sending the vehicle into a roll over. I leapt off, dodging the car behind us that was also hitting the upturned earth. I managed to get a step up on one of the overturned vehicles and launched myself back at Ultron. 

  
“Come on!” I was getting really annoyed at this whole robot thing. As we came out from under the bridge we got back in Barton’s cross hairs. Bullets slammed into Ultron just long enough for his minions to determine it was a threat. They flew off after the Jet. I took advantage of the distraction and threw Ultron into a concrete pillar, he took a chunk of it with him before flying back at me. I grabbed him as he tried to knock me off the truck, crashing us both into the moving train that ran alongside the street. We continued the fight in the train car, I tried to keep myself between him and the civilians while they ran. 

“I’m going in. Cap, can you keep him occupied?” Natasha asked over the comms, she must have eyes on the cradle. 

“What do you think I've been doing?” I pulled myself back onto my feet, throwing myself back at the tinman. Tony’s voice in my head told me calling him ‘tin’ was inaccurate but I couldn’t really care less what sort of metal the fist was made of as it cracked my jaw. I got my shield between us again as a blur tackled Ultron away from me. I watched as Metal handrails crossed between Ultron and the Maximoff boy, his sister protecting him.   
  


“Please. Don't do this.” Ultron was asking the twins not to turn against him, were they really that important to his plan?   
  


“What choice do we have?” The girl tried to attack again but Ultron ran.

“Nat, we gotta go.” Barton was yelling in my earpiece. “Nat! Cap, you see Nat?”  
  


“If you have the package, get it to Stark! Go!” I didn’t have eyes on Natasha, but she was a big girl, she could handle herself.   
  


“Do you have eyes on Nat!?” He asked again.  
  


“Go!” He followed the order reluctantly, leaving me alone on a train that was about to run out of track. I looked around and saw the Maximoff twins standing in the car like lost puppies. Good, they could help. What was it Hill had said? He’s fast and she's weird. I turned to the fast one. 

“Civilians in our path.” I didn’t need to say more, he turned into a blur and I watched as people were moved too fast for my eyes to follow. I turned to his sister. “Can you stop this thing?” She looked terrified. I didn’t wait for a response, I just hoped her brother could get people out of the way and that we stopped before we hit anything that would kill us. 

I moved to the front of the train, moving civilians as I went. The windshield was busted out and I held up my shield to try to deflect some of the debris. It worked...until a very large bit of building flung me toward the back of the traincar. I felt the train lifting from the ground as I got to my feet, the girl was kneeling and red energy was flowing out of her hands and around the train. I didn’t have time to analyze it, the train was slowing down and that’s all that mattered. When we stopped I watched the girl, Wanda I remembered, get off the train. She went to her brother who, for once, wasn’t going anywhere fast so I took a second to pull myself back together.

“I’m fine, I just need to take a minute.” Pietro was telling his sister as I approached. 

“I’m very tempted not to give you one.”

“The cradle, did you get it?” Wanda didn’t seem worried about what I'd do to them while they recovered, after seeing her lift a train I couldn’t blame her. 

“Stark will take care of it.” I tried to reassure her.

“No he won’t.” The emotion on her face was not what I expected. Fear.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stark’s not crazy.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince. He had just built Ultron. 

  
“He will do anything to make things right.” She said it and at first I didn’t understand how it was an argument, but then I did. Shit.

  
“Stark, come in. Stark. Anyone on comms?”

  
“Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that?”

We needed to get back to the tower. Now.


	7. Don't Close Your Eyes

**[Fin- 19:42 May 12th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

[ _Please, it hurts. Please can we stop?]_

_“Bitte, es tut weh. Können wir bitte aufhören?”_

I'd found a quiet corner to sit in, that had been a mistake. If I'd stayed with them in the chaos of the lab I would have had something to distract me, here in the quiet the voice of the little girl in my head just kept begging her father to stop. I hadn’t realized I was covering my ears in vain until Barton asked me if I was okay. I hadn’t even realized he was back and I uncurled myself from the ball of crazy I'd wrapped myself in, nodding. We both knew I was lying but he didn’t press the issue, which was very un-Barton of him. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked, the look on his face had me worried and for the moment that voice was drowning out the little girl. 

“Nat. Ultron has her, I'm going to see if she’s reaching out somewhere he can’t catch it.”

“Need help?” I offered, unsure how much help I'd actually be but I knew I wasn’t qualified to help with whatever Tony and Bruce were up to. 

“Sure, come on.” He led the way down into what Tony would consider storage, a room filled with pre-internet tech. We spent a few minutes pulling out radios, different makes and models, even a telegraph. I watched him set everything up, vaguely recognizing what he was doing. “They still teach Morse code to agents, right?”

I tapped on the desk, ‘-.-- . …’ and he handed me a pair of headphones. I sat with him for a while, listening to the static and not much else. He watched the other equipment for activity, his motions almost frantic as he went from one to another, worried he’d miss something. I jumped when something interrupted the static, I wasn’t sure if it was anything at first but when the sequence started to repeat I knew it was Nat. I handed Barton the headphones and he pressed them to his ear while I wrote down the numbers. He confirmed them with a smile before typing them into the computer. I thought they looked familiar but I wasn’t sure why until he zoomed in on the map. It was the Hydra base where we’d picked up Strucker. Great, the bad guys were recycling hide outs now.

“SHUT IT DOWN!” I heard Steve shouting in the lab and Barton shooed me off to see what was going on while he answered Nat. 

“I thought you were watching them!?” It was the first thing he said to me when I entered the room. 

“I didn’t think they were stupid enough to do the same thing twice. Clearly I was wrong!” I yelled back defensively. The overall hostility of the room almost distracted me from the guests he’d brought back with him. “What the hell are they doing here!?” The brother stepped in front of his sister protectively but the men arguing around us didn’t seem to notice.   
  
“You don't know what you're doing.” Steve turned his attention back to Tony and Bruce.   
  


“And you do? She's not in your head?” Banner looked at the girl and for a moment I wasn’t sure which side of this fight I was on. One the one hand, twins bad. On the other hand, new AI robot bad.   
  


“I know you're angry.” The girl spoke, her voice uncertain. 

  
“Oh, we're way past that. I could choke the life out of you and never change a shade.” Bruce responded flatly. I couldn’t say I disagreed with his sentiment but he’d have to get in line. 

“Banner, After everything that's happened…” Steve put on his ‘lets be reasonable’ voice. 

  
“That's nothing compared to what's coming!” Tony countered in his ‘I'll never be reasonable’ voice as everyone started shouting at once.   


“You don't know what's in there!” 

“This isn't a game…”

  
“‘The creature...!”

I had to resist the urge to cover my ears again, I couldn’t think, I just needed everyone to shut the fuck up and think about what we were doing for one god damned second!

I felt a woosh of air brush past me as papers in the lab went flying, faster than I could see, the hoses to the cradle came unplugged. When everything settled Pietro Maximoff was standing on the opposite side of the room. 

“No, no. Go on. You were saying?” I didn’t know if I should be mad or thank him but before I could decide the glass below him shattered. It was almost simultaneous with the crack of a gunshot and he fell into the room I'd been in with Clint earlier. I heard his sister scream for him as I looked through the broken panel. He was fine.

A panel on the cradle started wailing as the computer still attached announced ‘power loss critical’. 

“I’m rerouting the upload.” Tony turned back to the computer and I saw Steve move. He threw his shield and it bounced off of the equipment in the room, knocking a few computers offline. I heard the whine of Tony’s gauntlet powering up a split second before the blast hit Steve in the chest, sending him flying. I felt myself backing up and I didn’t stop until I hit the wall. I didn’t know what to do, who to fight. These were my friends, mostly, what was I supposed to do here? I watched Bruce grab Wanda, wrapping an arm around her throat as Clint ran up the stairs, gun drawn. He saw me as he walked past but said nothing. Steve was back on his feet and running at Tony, who had put on more of the Iron Man suit. The punch connected as the chest shot another blast of energy and the momentum sent them both flying. 

“Stop.” I tried to yell but all that came out of my mouth was the soft whisper of a scared child. My knees buckled and I felt my throat burn with held back tears. I slid to the ground and pulled my knees to my chest as I kept asking them to stop, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me.

“Wait!” I heard Bruce yell as all the hair on my body stood on end, the electricity filling the room. I felt Elena kneel beside me, helping me to my feet while she asked what was going on. I didn’t have an answer for her. She kept her arm around my shoulder as we tried not to look directly into the lightning. Thor was standing on the cradle, sending power directly into it while we all watched in confusion. When he stopped we all stood in silence, waiting. 

We didn’t have to wait long, the cradle burst open sending Thor and pieces of metal flying. A figure lept from the box, crouching atop it momentarily. It straightened as it looked around, trying to get it’s bearings and quickly realizing it was surrounded. In what I can only assume was a panicked decision it leapt at Thor, who tossed the being through the wall. We watched as the creature flew through the glass and kept going, it’s body not obeying the laws of gravity as its momentum carried it forward. It stopped itself before breaking through the external wall and floated in the air just looking out the window. Thor went after it and Steve followed but they didn’t attack. 

“Hey.” I heard Elena beside me, she looked pretty shaken up.

“Hey.” I managed a smile. “You’re gone what, 5 minutes and everything goes to shit.”

“So I see.” She squeezed my shoulders to her. “You alright?” I didn’t have the words to answer so I just shook my head ‘no’. She didn’t press more in the moment, she knew better. Instead we made our way down the stairs, joining everyone else who was watching the being that had come from the cradle. Getting a better look, it reminded me of the muscle diagrams you’d see in anatomy books, if someone had artistically sculpted some metal plates here and there. We watched as the body changed, a silver layer mimicking clothes covered the form as though it had only just realized it had been naked. It made the muscle analogy a little more unsettling but I'm sure it wasn’t the strangest thing I'd dealt with...not even if we only counted this week. 

“I'm sorry, that was...odd.” The voice was undeniably Jarvis.. “Thank you.” He looked at Thor, materializing a cape in the same manner as he’d done clothes in an effort to resemble the god of thunder. 

  
“Thor, you helped create this?” Steve was confused, Thor had been against this before. 

  
“I've had a vision. A whirlpool that sucks in all hope of life and at its center is that.” Thor pointed at the gem that was embedded in the being’s forehead. 

  
“What, the gem?” Bruce asked as he stepped forward cautiously.   
  


“It's the Mind Stone. It's one of the six Infinity Stones, the greatest power in the universe, unparalleled in its destructive capabilities.”   
  


“Then why would you bring it to…” Steve tried to ask but Thor cut him off with a statement I'd never thought I'd hear.   
  


“Because Stark is right.”  
  


“Oh, it's definitely the end times.” Bruce joked nervously.   
  


“The Avengers cannot defeat Ultron.” Thor’s tone was borderline apologetic.  
  


“Not alone.” The being added.   
  


“Why does your ‘vision’ sound like JARVIS?” Steve watched, eyebrows furrowed, as the being walked forward and Tony tried to explain.   
  


“We...we reconfigured JARVIS' matrix to create something new.”

  
“I think I've had my fill of new.” Steve wasn’t hiding his skepticism. 

  
“You think I'm a child of Ultron?” The being asked him.   
  


“You're not?” It met Steve’s eyes and shook its head.

  
“I'm not Ultron. I'm not JARVIS. I am...I am…”   
  


“I looked in your head and saw annihilation.” Wanda stepped up, too angry to be afraid.  
  


“Look again.”  
  


“Yeah. Her seal of approval means jack to me.” Barton was the person I was most in agreement with at the moment so I moved to stand near him.   
  


“Their powers, the horrors in our heads, Ultron himself, they all came from the Mind Stone, and they're nothing compared to what it can unleash. But with it on our side…” Thor tried to explain but everyone was still on edge.   
  


“Is it? Are you? On our side?” Steve asked.   
  


“I don't think it's that simple.” the being responded calmly.   
  


“Well it better get real simple real soon.” Barton crossed his arms.   
  


“I am on the side of life. Ultron isn't, he will end it all.”  
  


“What's he waiting for?” Tony asked.  
  


“You.”  
  


“Where?” Bruce walked toward the being.  
  


“Sokovia.” I answered, my voice cracked a bit when I spoke and I hoped no one had noticed. 

“He's got Nat there too.” Clint added.   
  


“If we're wrong about you, if you're the monster that Ultron made you to be…”  
  


“What will you do?” He knew the answer to the question even though none of them said it. “I don't want to kill Ultron. He's unique, and he's in pain. But that pain will roll over the earth, so he must be destroyed. Every form he's built, every trace of his presence on the net, we have to act now. And not one of us can do it without the others. Maybe I am a monster. I don't think I'd know if I were one. I'm not what you are, and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me. But we need to go.” He held Mjolnir out to Thor, the motion so effortless that most of us hadn’t even realized he’d picked the hammer up. Thor took it from him without a word, his expression not hiding his disbelief. 

“Right.” Thor followed the being, clapping a hand on Tony’s shoulder as he passed. “Well done.”

The rest of us stood dumbfounded as they left the room. Steve was the first one to come back to his senses, giving orders and getting us back on track.  
  


“Three minutes. Get what you need.”

  
  


**[Elena - 19:57 May 12th, 2015 - AVENGERS TOWER]**

_Don’t Close Your Eyes - Sam Tinnesz_

“We have three minutes for you to summarize what the hell is wrong with you before we’re all on a quinjet with zero privacy.” Fin had been pulling gear out of her locker when I spoke and I watched her jump at my voice. 

“I’ll be fine.” Her jaw clenched, keeping her from saying more.

“I know you will be. But you aren’t right now and we’re about to walk into god knows what. I need to know you’re up for it.” She didn’t turn around to talk to me but I watched as she slowly reached up into the locker, pulling out her ipod. She hadn’t needed the distraction for a while now, having relearned to sort the chaos on her own, so the fact she was taking it now. “That bad?” Her shoulders tensed. 

“She got in your head too, right?” 

“Yes.” I remembered the vision. My parents. James. Everyone I cared for dead or dying. It was hard to forget. “What did she show you that has you so shaken up? You know it wasn’t real, right?” 

“I know...I know most of it wasn’t. But some of it was.”

“Fin, she just showed us things we already feared in our subconscious. That’s all.” I laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to reassure her. 

“I know that.” She laughed, her hand wiped at her eyes and made me wonder if the laugh hadn’t been hiding something else. “My subconscious just has a lot going on is all.”

“Fin…” I tried to think of some way to tell her it was okay but she shrugged out from under my hand, stepping away from me. 

“It’s fine. I'm fine.” She finally turned to face me, a forced smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I just need dear old dad to shut the fuck up long enough for us to finish this.” she held up the ipod to emphasize her plan. For a second I wasn’t sure why she was so upset about what Wanda had shown her, I couldn’t think of anything Coulson’s ghost could be saying that would have her off kilter. I felt like an idiot when I realized she didn't mean Coulson. 

I had more questions, I wanted to know what she saw and how she knew it was real, but we didn’t have time. Even if we did Fin had already started walking away and I wasn’t about to bring up her past in front of everyone. 

I finished getting ready and jogged to catch up, walking with her to the hangar, neither of us saying a word. I loaded my gear and offered Fin a hand with hers while we listened to Tony, Bruce, and Steve discuss a course of action. 

“No way we all get through this. If even one tin soldier is left standing, we've lost. It's gonna be blood on the floor.” Tony’s motivational speaking needed work. He wasn’t wrong, he knew better than anyone what an army of unmanned drone fighters was capable of and we couldn’t be sure how productive Ultron had been while we’ve been looking for him. I'd just been hoping that someone had managed to hold on to...well, hope. 

“I got no plans tomorrow night.” I saw Steve look over his shoulder to where Fin and I were standing, she wasn’t looking and had already put in her earbuds to drown us out but I saw the look on his face. I wondered if they had talked at the farmhouse, if I'd missed some crucial information regarding their relationship or if they had both been avoiding each other since we’d gotten back. Knowing Fin, I suspected the latter. 

“I get first crack at the big guy. Iron Man's the one he's waiting for.” I didn’t think Tony would have anyone arguing with him there. It was his mess, we would all be happy to let him clean it up. 

“That’s true, he hates you the most.” Thor’s ‘vision’ added helpfully. When Barton and the twins walked into the hangar the conversation stopped, we loaded up in silence. 

The ride was quiet, everyone was still processing what the hell just happened. Steve was pacing, which was unsettling to say the least. He typically tried to look calm for everyone else’s sake but he wasn’t hiding anything now. The thought made me glance to where Fin was hiding. She’d picked the seat furthest from the twins, her eyes were closed and I assumed her music was already on. I tried not to think about what her vision had consisted of, which had the unpleasant side effect of making me think over mine. I'd pushed it aside when Thor took me on his trip to see the norn, helping him was the more pressing issue, but now there was nothing to do but think and I wondered if this is what everyone else had been doing when we left them at the farm house. Sitting in their own thoughts and stewing. 

I looked around the jet. I didn’t know all of everyone’s secrets but I knew enough to realize that if we were all questioning our own minds, this wasn’t going to be an easy fight.

**[Steve - 05:33 EDT May 12th, 2015 - EN ROUTE]**

“Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire, and that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out.” I couldn’t take the silence anymore and I couldn’t let us walk into this fight with any expectations other than the reality we were about to face. “All they want is to live their lives in peace, and that's not going to happen today. But we can do our best to protect them. And we can get the job done, and find out what Ultron's been building. We find Romanoff, and we clear the field. Keep the fight between us. Ultron thinks we're monsters and we're what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating him. It's about whether he's right.” 

“What do we do?” Pietro asked, concern clear on his face. I was relieved that my hunch about them just being confused kids had been right. I didn’t want to put them on the front line but we needed all the help we could get. 

“Barton, do we have a location on Nat?” I asked. Clint met me at the console, zooming in on the map of Sokovia and pointing to a familiar location. 

“The coordinates she gave show her here, I'm not sure how accurate but it’s Nat so I'd assume it’s a safe bet.” He explained. 

“Right.” I thought for a second. We needed to clear civilians out, that was the priority, but we couldn’t leave Natasha as a hostage. “Pierto, Wanda. You know the city best, how hard will it be to evacuate?” 

“Hard, they aren’t just going to listen to the Avengers when they tell them to leave their homes.” Pietro shrugged. “I can try to convince the local authorities to help.”

“Maybe not that hard.” Wanda interjected. “I can reach a lot of people at once...I won't be able to do much but I can send the simplest suggestion, that it is unsafe to stay.”

“Do you have any powers that don’t involve getting into people’s minds and making them afraid?” I hadn’t realized Fin had been listening, she hadn’t commented on the conversation before we’d left the hangar and I assumed she had her music going. I saw Wanda start to get to her feet and put a hand up to stop her. 

“That’s not helpful right now.” If looks could kill I'd be dead from daggers Fin was staring at me but I didn’t have time to worry about it. “Wanda, anything you can do to get people to safety. Pietro, you help her. Barton. Go with them.” 

“No, I'm going to get Nat.” Clint argued. I didn’t have time for this.

“No, you’ll go with them.” I lowered my voice. “You’re the only one whose head she hasn’t gotten in, that makes you the only person I trust to watch their backs.”

“We don’t need a babysitter.” Wanda protested.

“Maybe not, but you’re untrained. I'm not sending out into the fray alone.”

“Who’s going to get Natasha then? You?”

“I’ll go.” It was Bruce who’d spoken up, he was usually the last to volunteer for anything and it caught me off guard. “It makes the most sense, I can’t be in the city during an evacuation and if a fight breaks out...the hulk can’t be loose amongst all those civilians.” 

“Okay. If you think you can handle it, go get her.” 

“Thanks Cap.” 

“There’s only one main road in and out of the city.” Elena joined us at the map, pointing to the south east end of the city. “Fin and I can stay near here. The last thing we need is for everyone to bottleneck and panic. If Ultron starts to attack while people are still leaving I can help the injured, keep them moving.”

“Good idea. Tony, find Ultron and figure out what he’s been doing here. We can’t stop him if we don’t know what he’s up to.”

“I think I can handle that.” 

“Vision, back him up.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Thor, drop Banner off somewhere close to here.” I pointed to Nat’s coordinates. “Give him a little head start. Then I want you on the perimeter. Anyone trying to evacuate on these smaller routes, make sure they make it. Keep an eye out for Ultron’s back up, we know it’s there we just don’t know where it will be coming from. If anyone needs help, you’re first up. Got it?” 

“What about you?” Fin was the one to ask. Her voice was so quiet I thought I'd imagined it until Elena turned to look at her. It was a normal question, one that was asked all the time in mission briefs and I'd expected it from Tony. I'd been prepared to tell him I'd be doing my god damned job but now. For some reason coming from her right now, in that tone of voice...It was like a punch in the gut. I started questioning every word of my plan, questioning her even being here. I should have asked her to stay at the tower, should have talked to her at the farm house, should have made sure she was alright because, despite my own distractions, I could see she wasn't. I swallowed the doubts creeping up and trying to spill out of my mouth, forcing a smile as I answered. 

“I’ll help on the bridge...so you can make sure I don’t do anything stupid.” 


	8. Fight Til The End

**[Fin - 09:47 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

I can barely hear the music in my ears over the chaos around us. We started the evacuation as soon as we landed, the twins had done a good job getting the people to leave and even if I disagreed with their methods I couldn’t argue with results. The hardest part was keeping cars moving on the bridge, a few times myself or Steve had run to the other side to figure out where the hold up was only to find people panicked on the other side, unsure where to go. We’d been pointing them in whatever direction was clear and hoping for the best, it seemed to be working so far. I heard the screaming before I saw them. 

“GO!” Steve yelled as a robot resembling an iron legionaire landed on a car beside him. He barely dodged it’s blast before hitting it with his shield. I started ushering people across the bridge faster, looking at the uncountable number of ultron drones filling the sky. 

The woman running beside me stumbled and I pulled her back to her feet, not slowing down. I watched her make it to the other side of the bridge as I felt the ground shake under my feet. 

“What the hell is that?” I asked no one in particular.

“I don’t know, but it’s not good.” Steve answered over comms. 

I watched as a plume of dust burst from the ground between me and the city, I couldn’t see Elena or Steve through the debris but I heard them. 

“Fin, you alright?” Elena was shouting. 

“Yeah, it was just...oh shit.” I watched the ground split through the clearing dust, the beams of the bridge groaning as the earth moved. I ran as fast as I could, jumping over cars and pushing civilians to safety as I passed. “MOVE! GET OFF THE BRIDGE!” My voice cracked with the unmistakable sound of panic and I heard Steve echoing my words. 

“CLEAR THE BRIDGE!” I ran toward his voice as I watched the ground rise in front of me. I ran up the hood of a car before jumping onto the red van that had rear ended it in the confusion. I couldn’t stop to help them, I just had to hope they were smart enough to get out of here. I leapt from the van, struggling to grasp the buckling metal structure of the bridge as I pulled myself up. I ran along the edge, trying not to look into the expanding crevice below. If I looked I wouldn’t want to do what needed to be done. I held my breath as I reached the end of the I-beam and jumped. I felt the bridge fall out from under me, watching a truck that had been on the break line disappear into the dust as I landed hard on the pavement. I rolled onto my back, scrambling away from the edge as fast as I could. I saw Steve standing on the left side of the bridge, watching as the debris fell onto the cars below. “FIN!”

“Oh my god.” Elena whispered over the comms, her voice trying to stay calm. “Fin? You alright? Steve, was she on the other side of the bridge?”

“I don't know.” He answered frantically.

“Was she ON the bridge!?” Elena shouted at him. 

“E, I don’t know, there was too much debris. I lost her sight of her.”

I tried to answer but my lungs were full of dust and I'd hit the ground hard. I swallowed a few times, trying to clear the grit from my throat enough to let them know I was alive. I tried to get to my feet, Steve was right there, if I could get up he would see me even if I couldn’t talk. I grabbed the tire of the car beside me and started pulling myself up. I felt a rib pop as it shifted loosely, not quite in its rightful place, I tried not to think about it. When I got to my feet Steve was leaning over the edge, presumably looking for me. 

“Lose something?” I managed to croak, the effort started a coughing fit but it was a fair trade for the look of relief on his face when he turned to see me.

“Elena, I got her. She’s--” Before I could finish, a bot flew into him from below, sending him flying before dropping him onto a car windshield further into the city. 

“Cap, you got incoming.” Tony called out over the comms. 

  
“Incoming already came in.” Steve answered, he sounded hurt but he waved me off when I got close enough to give him a hand. “Stark, you worry about bringing the city back down safely. The rest of us have one job: tear these things apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed...walk it off.” He looked directly at me when he said those last words, I remembered him being worried about me getting hurt in the field and trying to reassure him that I'd be alright. I knew this was his way of telling me to be safe. There was so much I wanted to say to that, to explain to him, but there wasn’t time. 

“Be safe.” Was the summary I chose to go with before taking off to help people escape the crumbling bridge. Most of the people toward the back of the line had vacated their cars but some of them were still sitting on the bridge, too shocked or confused to get out and run. I started with the car closest to me and worked my way down the line opening doors and breaking windows. I had to cut a few seatbelts, one man’s car had been crushed by a large chunk of rubble and I had to get Elena to help me. I got his leg out before she got to us but she’d need to fix it if he was going to walk out of there. When she got to him I moved down the line. 

I felt the bridge shift before I heard the crack of more pieces falling, I saw the woman sitting in her car near the edge and cussed her in my head as I ran to her. It was partly my fault, I should have started on this end, but I had assumed that the people in immediate danger would have removed themselves from the situation. When you learn the concept of “fight or flight” the books conveniently leave out the percentage of the human race that has evolved to have a ‘fainting goat’ style of emergency response. 

I got to her car as more asphalt crumbled from under her tires, the car started to shift and I grabbed it where I could, planting my feet firmly on the road and hoping it was enough. 

“GET OUT OF YOUR CAR!” I yelled at the woman, who was now in full blown hysterics. In my peripheral I saw two people in the car beside us and I hoped they’d take the advice as well. Over the comms I tried to sound calm. “I could use a hand here.”

“I CAN’T” She screamed back at me. “I’M STUCK!”

“STUCK OR SCARED?” I was losing my grip on the bumper, the edges of the metal were cutting into my fingers and I wasn’t strong enough to pull her back from the edge. I felt the weight of the car shift in my grasp as Steve grabbed the bumper with both hands, for a second I thought we had her...until the bumper broke off. 

Another chunk of the road crumbled with the shifting weight and the cars fell, the woman inside screaming, I had to grab Steve by the shoulders to keep him from falling as he leaned over the edge to watch. Before either of us could react I spotted Thor going after the woman, he wasn’t going to be able to save both cars without help. One of the robots came at us, Steve hit it with the car’s bumper before turning back to watch Thor pull the woman from her car and look up at us. 

“Is he…”? I asked. 

“Looks like it.” Steve answered as Thor threw the woman up to us. We both saw that she wasn’t going to make it but Steve jumped down first, grabbing onto the bridge by an exposed rod of rebar and catching her with his other hand. 

“I got you. Just look at me.” He pulled himself up as best he could as I laid myself flat, reaching my arms down. He swung her up to me and I helped her back onto solid ground. She started to run from the edge as soon as her feet were under her, one of the sentries moved to intercept her. 

“You can't save them all. You'll never...” Cap’s shield flew from behind me, embedding itself in the mechanical chest. Steve pulled himself back onto the road and used his bracers to bring his shield back, bot still attached. He shoved it off his shield and sent it over the edge.

“You'll never what? You didn't finish!” He helped me to my feet as Thor dropped the second car back onto the road, it’s passengers visibly shaken. “What? Were you napping?” He teased Thor. 

“The daughter of Phil requested backup, I backed up.” Thor chuckled as we walked off the bridge, checking cars as we went to make sure we wouldn’t need to do that again. 

“We need to get into the city.” I looked over the flying island that was once Sokovia. The buildings in the city cracked and crumbled under the stress of being lifted into the air but my bigger concern was the sentinels who were actively attacking the remaining civilians. 

We met up with Elena and ran back into chaos. The streets were filled with robots and civilians alike, the latter screaming in terror as they ran with no real direction. 

“Here!” Elena shouted, pointing at a large building, I'm not sure what it used to be but it seemed structurally intact on the ground floor. She didn’t wait for a response before she started grabbing people and ushering them inside. I followed her lead while Thor and Steve took care of our skynet wannabes. I managed to ignore most of the commotion around me, focusing on getting people to safety, but when they exploded what I can only assume was a gas tanker...i noticed. I wasn’t the only one, I watched as Thor was picked up and flown out of the fight by the biggest robot I'd seen. I looked back at Elena.

“Go!” She said it in a tone that chided me for even hesitating. 

“Alright, we’re clear here” Barton called over comms.

“We are not clear!” Steve answered, kicking his shield though one of the sentinel’s heads. “We are very not clear!”

“Alright, coming to you.” 

One of the sentinels dove at Steve’s back, I jumped, grabbing its legs and pulled it out of the sky. When we hit the ground I plunged one of my push knives into its spine and twisted, popping the head from the rest of the body. 

“Fin!” Steve shouted and I ducked on instinct, the shield hitting a bot that had been behind me. I threw a shock disc at the one coming up beside Steve, its circuits frying on impact. I didn’t stop to think between the throw and my next move, I pulled the shield out of the bot beside me bringing it up to hit another in the knee joint as it charged me. When it bounced back I brought the shield up, hitting it in the face before tossing it back to Steve as he made a running punch at the thing’s head.   
  


“Thanks.” I panted. We focused our attention on getting the rest of the civilians sheltered. I wasn’t sure how safe they’d actually be but we didn’t have many other options. 

  
  


**[Steve - 12:01 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

I watched Natasha help a family inside the building we’d set up as shelter, she looked like hell. 

“Nice of you to join us.” Fin smiled. “Thought you and Banner would be halfway to tahiti by now.”

“Thought about it, but I just couldn’t pass up the chance to be in a flying city.” Nat grinned. “Besides, I couldn’t leave you guys unsupervised. Who knows what sort of trouble you’d find yourselves in.”

“Glad you could make it, Romanoff.” I looked around the seemingly quiet city. “The next wave is gonna hit any minute. What have you got, Stark?” I was looking for other options. This was a short term fix and we all knew it. 

  
“Well, nothing great. Maybe a way to blow up the city. That'll keep it from impacting the surface if you guys can get clear.” Tony offered.

“We’ll never be able to get everyone out.” Elena looked at the room full of frightened people.  
  


“I asked for a solution, not an escape plan.” I needed something better than that, I couldn’t leave these people here to die.   
  


“Impact radius is getting bigger every second. We're going to have to make a choice.” Tony’s voice told me he didn’t like the plan either, but it was the best he had at the moment.   
  


“Cap, these people are going nowhere. If Stark finds a way to blow this rock…” Natasha tried to reason with me.   
  


“Not 'til everyone's safe.” It wasn’t a good argument but it was all I had.

  
“Everyone up here versus everyone down there? There's no math there.” Nat countered. 

  
“I'm not leaving this rock with one civilian on it.” The words came out harsher than I'd meant them too but I needed solutions, killing everyone in the city was not an option in my book.

  
“I didn't say we should leave.” I looked at her, really looked for the first time since she’d joined the fight. I saw it in her eyes, she was ready to die up here if it meant saving everyone down there. I saw Fin walk out of the shadow of the building over Nat’s shoulder, her expression not much more hopeful. Her eyes met mine and she smiled that ‘I'm okay, don’t worry’ smile that I knew meant the opposite. “There's worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?” Nat continued.

  
“Glad you like the view, Romanoff.” The comms had some static but the voice was undoubtedly Nick Fury. “It's about to get better... “ The helicarrier rose through the clouds, hovering level with our floating island. 

“Holy shit” Fin laughed in disbelief. 

“Nice, right?” Nick answered. “I pulled her out of mothballs with a couple of old friends. She's dusty, but she'll do.” 

“Fury, you son of a bitch.” Steve grinned. 

  
“Oooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Nick laughed. 

  
  


**[Elena - 12:37 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

_Fight Til the End - Jack Savoretti_

I heard the helicarrier before I'd heard Nick over the comms but I hadn’t let myself believe it was real. I had been telling myself that the altitude change had popped my ears one too many times. As I walked out of the building I watched the lifeboats deploy and heard Pietro talking, I hadn’t realized he was here. 

“This is S.H.I.E.L.D.?” 

“This is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be.” Steve answered. 

“This is not so bad.” The kid smiled. He was right. Part of me missed this, a bigger part of me that I'd care to admit. 

“Let’s load ‘em up!” Steve yelled. Everyone worked together to get the people on the boats, I saw Fin leading groups toward the back up the stairs and wondered why until I saw the lifeboat landing on the roof. I kept an eye on the sky for an attack but so far everything was being handled by Tony and Rhodes. After a few rounds of lifeboat loading and unloading it seemed like the crew Nick had brought with him had it well under control so I went to find Natasha.

“Looks like we aren’t dying here after all.” She raised an eyebrow at me in confusion before realizing I'd probably heard that whole conversation, despite not standing right next to them. 

“Looks like.” She smiled. 

“You know...if we’re all getting off this rock, we’re going to need a lullaby.” 

“We need to take down Ultron first.” Nat countered. 

“We do. Either way…”

“Right. I'll find him.”  
  


“Thor, I got a plan!” Tony announced. 

“We’re out of time! They’re coming for the core.” Thor yelled. 

“Avengers, time to work for a living.” Tony shouted. I watched him fly off in the direction of the church. Rhodey, who'd come with Fury, started taking out any bots that were on his tail. 

“What the fuck do you think we’ve been doing?” Fin asked of the comms, I was glad to hear her talking again, even if it was just to argue with Tony. I jogged up beside her as we made our way to the church, handing her a bag I'd grabbed off one of the lifeboats. She didn’t ask, we just ducked into an alcove and I started handing her gear. 

“You good?” I asked as I undressed, I knew she was tired of me prying but it was my job to make sure she was alright.

“I’m keeping it together.” We walked into the ruins where everyone was waiting. “One crisis at a time.” She turned her back and zipped the bag, tossing it over her shoulder while she waited for me to change. When I'd finished we met the others. I wasn’t entirely sure if fighting robots in wolf form was my best plan, but what I did know is I was faster and stronger like this. Whether it was a fair trade for not being able to use weapons would remain to be seen. 

“Romanoff? You and Banner better not be playing 'hide the zucchini'." I looked around, realizing Nat wasn’t here yet. 

  
“Relax, Shell-head. Not all of us can fly.” She pulled up in a dump truck, taking out a hand full of sentinels in her way as she did. Once she parked I watched the Hulk awkwardly climb out of the back, ripping apart a robot as he did. “What's the drill?”

  
“This is the drill.” he pointed to the apparatus in the middle of the floor. “If Ultron gets a hand on the core, we lose.” Tony explained as the giant asshole robot in question finally showed himself.

“Is that the best you can do?” Thor taunted. I growled at him and we watched as Ultron raised a hand, summoning hundreds more of his sentinel army to him.

“You had to ask.” Steve shared in my frustration. 

  
“This is the best I can do.” He held out his arms to emphasize. “This is exactly what I wanted. All of you, against all of me. How could you possibly hope to stop me?”

  
“Well, like the old man said. Together.” Tony spoke calmly, as though there was no doubt in his mind that this would all work out. Hulk agreed with a loud roar that shook the stone building around us as the horde of sentinels converged on us. 

The robots came from everywhere, crawling over the stone walls and charging all at once. I couldn’t keep track of what anyone else was doing, all I could see was the wall of robots in front of me. Fin was beside me, taking out the sentinels that tried to go over us, the rest I did everything I could to stop. I bit, I clawed, I body slammed them into one another. The red pulse of Wanda’s power filled my vision in flashes, the lightning from Mjolnir made my fur stand on end. The unmistakable sound of vibranium hitting vibranium rang off the walls as Cap smashed Ultron's minions to bits, Tony flying above to take out any that got by us. No matter what it took, they were not reaching that core. 

I heard hulk’s roar from outside the chapel and the sentinels who still could, started to run. We went after them. 

“They'll try to leave the city.”  
  


“We can't let 'em, not even one.” We watched them fly off the edge, out of reach. “Rhodey!”  
  


“I'm on it.” Rhody cut them off, keeping them from getting too far as Vision followed to help him clean up. It seemed like we’d won the fight but we still had a major problem on our hands. 

  
  


**[Steve - 14:03 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

**“** We gotta move out. Even I can tell the air is getting thin. You guys get to the boats, I'll sweep for stragglers, be right behind you.” I thought I'd just been out of breath from the fight, I didn’t think about the altitude. We needed to get down before we ran out of air.   
  


“What about the core?” Barton had a point, we couldn’t leave it unprotected. If any of the sentinels came back for it we were screwed.   
  


“I'll protect it.” Wanda spoke up, looking directly at Clint. “It's my job.” That seemed good enough for him, which made it good enough for me. He took Nat and they headed for the lifeboats, I started in the opposite direction to look for anyone we may have missed. I'd seen Elena trot off behind Nat, I didn’t realize Fin hadn’t gone with her until I turned around. 

“What are you doing, get to the lifeboat.” I could tell she wanted to say something but she didn’t, so I did. “Fin, please. I can’t do this and worry about you.” 

“Funny, that’s the same reason I followed you.” she crossed her arms, her body language not matching softness in her voice. 

“Fin.” I stepped forward to touch her but she stepped back out of reach. Damn it. I dropped my hands in frustration. “I’ll get on the lifeboat after I make a sweep to be sure no one is left behind.”

“Whose making sure you aren’t left behind?” She countered. “You have a bad habit of staying on flying things when they start crashing.” Shit. She had me there. 

“Not this time.” I promised.

“Why not? What’s different this time?”

“For one, if you’re not on it I have a very compelling reason not to be either. If you go get on a lifeboat, I will be on it with you before it leaves.”

“You swear? You’ll be on the boat before this place starts falling out of the sky?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“Finlay, I swear to you that I will be off of this flying chunk of rock before it plummets back to earth. I promise I won’t go down with the ship, metaphorically or literally.” She started to fidget but didn’t say more, I realized she wanted to say whatever had gone unsaid since the ship. As much as I wanted to know, I needed her safe. “Go. We can talk about it later. We WILL talk about it later.”

  
  


**[Elena - 14:27 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

I was relieved that Fin had the forethought to give my stuff to Nat before taking off after Steve. We found a car without nine tons of debris covering it and Nat hot wired it while Clint unzipped my bag and tossed it into the back seat. I hoped in after it, nosing around to stick my head through the tee shirt. Years of changing on the go had taught me a few tricks on keeping my modesty. I shifted back and dressed while Clint maneuvered the cluttered ruins that were Sokovia just this morning, talking all the while about his next home improvement project. By the time we reached the lifeboat he had an entire dining room renovation planned. As he put the car into park we could hear the hulk in the distance, she met my eyes without me having to say a word. 

“I know. I'll get him.”

“We don't have a lot of time.” Barton sounded worried, I didn’t blame him, but Natasha had been the one to volunteer to work with Bruce on a way to control the hulk. She’d chosen to take on the responsibility and we couldn’t just leave him here. 

  
“So get your ass on a boat.” She hoped out of the car, running off in the direction of the smashing sounds. Barton walked with me to the lifeboat, making sure I was settled. I was worried about Steve and Fin but looking around at the remaining civilians I realized I had work to do. Everyone on this last boat was a straggler, someone who’d been trapped in a house or too injured to get themselves on one of the earlier lifeboats. I left Barton to watch for the others and started to triage injuries, not telling anyone what I was doing in hopes of avoiding a scared impatient mob. The sounds of panic were already filling the raft, people not understanding why the boat wasn’t leaving yet, not knowing what they were waiting on. The sounds of the hulk in the distance not doing much to relive their concerns. Somewhere in the front of the raft a woman was calling for someone, to my left a man was holding his crying wife. The atmosphere smelled of sweat and fear, blood and dust. Eventually I reached the woman who’d been calling out, she had a significant gash on her forehead, possibly a concussion. 

“What is your name?” I asked, trying to get her to look at me. When she did she was a little unfocused, but she answered my question, which was a good sign. 

“Zrinka. My name is Zrinka. Please, my little brother. Costel, We were in the market. I was supposed to be watching him.” She leaned forward to look past me, back into the city. “Costel!?!”

Barton must have seen the boy because he left the lifeboat, heading for something specific. A moment after he left I saw Fin boarding but he wasn’t with her. I started to ask if she’d seen him but was interrupted by an all too familiar sound. I looked up when I heard gunfire in the distance and recognized the sound of our quinjet. Who was in it? What were they firing at? Had we missed some of the sentinels? I stood trying to get eyes on it but it was too far off. 

“Who’s in the quin?” I asked over comms, wondering if it was more Fury reinforcement that was just a bit late to the party. 

“Unknown.” Maria answered. “It’s not one of us.”

“Shit.” I watched the jet crest the buildings on my left. “EVERYBODY TAKE COVER!” I pulled myself under the roof of the lifeboat and watched helplessly as a spray of bullets tore up the ground as it headed for my friends. I saw Thor move out of the line of fire as Steve ducked under his shield, I didn’t have eyes on Fin but I knew she was still on the lifeboat. I scanned the open space between the buildings and the rafts and saw Clint. He’d found a child that I could only assume was Costel and held him in his arms, his face set in determination despite the oncoming quinjet. I couldn’t watch, I couldn’t let this happen. I jumped off the lifeboat, running towards Barton. I knew I wouldn't beat the bullets there but maybe if I got to him fast enough. I watched as he crouched, turning his back to the gunfire to shield the kid. I watched as the car appeared behind him, seemingly out of nowhere. 

When I reached them Pietro was still on his feet, I grabbed him around the waist and tried to steady him as I assessed the damage. It wasn’t good. 

“You didn't see that coming.” He said as his knees buckled, I lowered him to the ground, trying to heal the more serious wounds as he went down. The bullets had entered at an angle that had done too much damage, one lung had collapsed, his heart was only clipped but if I fixed it first it would only make him bleed out faster. The rest of his internal organs were shredded by the jet’s hollow point rounds. The shrapnel had done it’s work to his major organs and I wasn’t going to be able to fix them all in time. I was still trying to heal him when Thor and Cap got to me, they helped me roll him onto his back. Barton checked his pulse before cussing and going back to the little boy. He picked him up and carried him onto the lifeboat. 

“Elena.” Steve said my name but I didn’t answer, I'd fixed the damage to the lung, spleen and heart. If I could just get it beating again I could. “Elena.” He pulled me up by my arms, putting himself between me and Pietro once I was on my feet. 

“I’ve almost got it, I just need to” I looked over his shoulder as Thor closed Pietro’s eyes. “No! I can fix him!”

  
“He’s gone Elena.” Steve said it gently, I knew he was right. I couldn’t hear his heartbeat and even while I was healing the tissue it wasn’t holding together the way living tissue did when it responded to my abilities. I was just patching flesh. 

“He died fighting, My father will have a place for him in Valhalla.” Thor tried to reassure me. It wasn’t working. 

I watched as they loaded his body onto the lifeboat, they laid him on the floor near the front so we could unload him before anyone saw. Barton had returned the kid to his sister and taken the seats beside Pietro, he looked rough but when I offered to look him over he waved me off. 

“No, no. I'm fine...it’s just been a long day.”


	9. Crazy

**[Steve - 14:44 May 12th, 2015 - SOKOVIA]**

I'd found a few stragglers on my last sweep, mostly the injured and scared people who’d been hiding from the madness instead of trying to escape. I'd watched them all load onto the lifeboat. It was filled beyond capacity at this point but we weren’t making another trip, I just had to hope everyone stayed calm until we got to the helicarrier. We’d loaded Pietro, Barton said he’d sit with him until Wanda got there. I was waiting outside the raft to intercept her, I didn’t want her walking into this unprepared. 

I watched everyone else go about their business, I hadn’t seen Fin but Clint and Elena both said they’d seen her get on the lifeboat. Natasha was safe on the carrier already, I'd seen Hulk taking her and assumed they were together. Thor, Vision and Tony could fly, so I wasn’t as concerned with them getting to the raft. I just needed Tony to finish whatever mad science he was doing so Wanda could evacuate. 

I felt the ground drop from under me, Fin’s voice asking me to promise her I'd be on the raft flashed through my mind as I jumped. I barely made it on to the loading ramp, but I did. I leaned over the edge, watching the city below plummet to earth and there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

  
  


**[Fin - 14:45 May 12th, 2015 - LIFEBOAT]**

_Crazy - Adona_

I passed Clint as I'd gotten on the lifeboat, he’d said something to me and I'd grunted in response before walking to the far corner of the boat, finding a seat and lowering myself into it. I reached a hand into my pocket, trying to figure out why the music had stopped. When I pulled out pieces of what was once an ipod, I had my answer. My face felt wet and I reached up a hand, pulling back fingers damp with tears. I hadn’t even realized I'd been crying, when had I started crying? I leaned back, closing my eyes and hoping I was tired enough for my brain to just shut off…

Flashes of pain and anger ran across my mind, incoherent and loud. I covered my ears but the sound was in my head and it wouldn’t stop. Voices speaking frantic german, screams...some mine and some not. Pain rippled under my skin and I felt like I was going to be torn apart.

I couldn't stop crying and I realized I'd somehow managed to hold myself together until now, holding back the flood of memories, reawakened by that stupid girl. I didn't have the energy to be mad, it hurt too much. I slid off of the chair, squeezing between it and the metal wall where I curled as tight as I could into the corner I'd found, willing myself to be invisible. I knew it wasn't working when I heard Elena say my name. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter and held my knees to my chest. I felt the coolness of her shadow pass in front of me as she knelt as close as she could without touching me.

“Fin...talk to me.” She whispered.

I didn't open my eyes, but I took a deep ragged breath and spoke. My voice shook but came out more composed than I had expected. 

“I remember...everything.”

“the nightmare?” she asked, confused. 

I shook my head harder and heard Steve’s voice in the distance, calling for me. He was looking for us.

“Please...please don't let him over here.” I whispered. Elena didn't need to ask, she'd heard him too. I felt her turn away and whisper something before Agent Barton's tired voice agreed, I realized he must have come with Elena to check on me and I wondered if some of the screams I'd heard hadn’t been in my mind after all.. 

“Sweetie, you know he wouldn’t hurt you.” 

“I know.” I choked on the words but continued. “I know that, logically. I know. But it's there and I can't...Elena I remember everything.” i repeated, unable to find another way to say it.

“it wasn't real, Fin.” she sounded frustrated, and I knew everyone had their own mind fuck to deal with, my breakdown wasn't helping matters.

“...not that part, no. But the rest...i think the rest was real and im...im having trouble sorting it all out, there’s too much. I can't. I just can't have him here...not right now...Elena, please. Tell him I'm sorry, It’s just too much all at once.” 

“Elena,” Agent Barton’s voice was back.”Go, people need you. I can stay with her, if that's alright?”

I nodded and felt his weight settle in the chair beside me as I wondered what was taking us so long to get to the carrier. The sun warmed my face again as Elena walked away and I moved to put it between my folded knees when I heard Barton whisper.

“Hey, hey. Don't do that. That won't help anything.”

I opened my eyes then, turning to him. He held an arm out and I knew what he was offering. Comfort, sympathy...things I didn't like taking, but whatever had broken in me didn't care. In this moment, amid the memories of being tortured and experimented on by my real father all I wanted was the safety I felt when Coulson told me I was his daughter, that no one would hurt me anymore. I didn't have Coulson anymore, but Clint had known me since I was 13 years old. He has seen me hurt, he has seen me cry, he has seen me vulnerable.

I pulled myself onto the seat beside him, curled into the fetal position and ducked under his arm. He rested it heavily across my shoulders as his other hugged my legs to him, I pressed my face to his chest and couldn't hold anything else in. I fell apart and he held me in silence, not asking my why or what he can do to fix it. Just letting me get it out and I wondered if his kids knew how lucky they were to have him.

  
  


**[Steve - 14:47 May 12th, 2015 - LIFEBOAT]**

Barton told me to stay away and give her space but now he was cradling her like a child as she sobbed, visibly shaking in his arms. Anytime my eyes met his he shook his head in a clear; ’you stay over there’ gesture. I didn't understand, had I don't something wrong? I knew the visions had messed with us all but she had seemed fine only moments ago, a little jumpy but who wasn't. As soon as we'd gotten clear I started looking for her, all I wanted to do was make sure she was alright and here I was, looking at her not being alright and I was being told to back off. After what seemed like an eternity I found Elena, she looked dead on her feet but several of the previously injured around us were now stable. Most of them could have waited to see a doctor, we both knew that, but losing Pietro had to be sitting heavy on her conscience. I walked to her and she started talking before I could.

“Cap, I know it's hard to give her space but she really needs it right now.” 

I started to open my mouth in reply but she continued. 

“Yes part of the fucked up mind game bullshit was about you. No, she doesn't think you will hurt her. No, you can't go talk to her about it right now.” she let out a long breath. “Whatever Wanda did, she made Fin remember everything that happened to her before Peggy found her frozen in that box. She remembers what Schmidt put her through. I know you want to help, she knows too, but she can't deal with her own shit and worry about her subconscious thinking you are part of the problem. She just needs time...if you don't mind I'm going to go check on her. If she asks for you, you will be the first to know.”

She gave me a chance to say something but all I could manage was a nod.

“if it's any consolation, she told me to tell you she's sorry.” She laid a hand on my shoulder, pausing again for me to say anything. Nothing seemed good enough. 

  
  


**[Elena - 14:59 May 12th, 2015 - EN ROUTE]**

By the time I crossed the platform back to Fin I was beat, but she was still shaking in Barton’s arms and he looked concerned. I mouthed ‘has she stopped at all?’ to him, thankful he could read lips. He shook his head. A light touch tapped my shoulder and I heard Vision’s voice.

“Excuse me Agent Allen, perhaps I can be of some assistance?”

“How?” I was too tired for this. I wasn’t even sure when he’d gotten on the lifeboat. 

“I...if she wishes, I could render her unconscious for a time, until we are in a more stable environment.” He gestured around us, debris was still falling from the sky and people were screaming and crying all around us. The helicarrier had to move further from the debris when it started to crumble. It had been ‘unstable’, which was the understatement of the century, and the lifeboats moved slow over long distances. 

“Do it.” her voice was so quiet with strain I almost hadn't heard her. “can you keep me out long enough to get me home?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

“I don't want to wake up before then, you understand?” her knuckles were white where she gripped Agent Barton’s shirt.

“I can make that possible, but I am unsure if it will be a dreamless sleep. You could be trapped in a nightmare until then. Frankly I am unsure how that might affect you.”

“I'm already having the nightmare and I'm awake, what's the worst that could happen?”

“The worst possibility in that case would be that-” 

“I don't actually want to know.” she cut him off. “just do it.”

“Very well then.”

I started to protest but when I met her gaze I knew there was no talking her out of it. She turned and said something to Barton, I could have heard if I'd been listening but I was too preoccupied with what the worst case scenarios might be. I watched as vision placed a finger to the space between her eyes and she closed them, going limp in Barton’s arms, her face instantly serene. He moved her into the seats they had been taking up as he stood.

“Where are you going?” I hadn't meant for my voice to sound alarmed but it must have because Barton startled at it.

“She asked me to do something. I'm doing it. Go sit on the other end of the bench, you've done all you can. Rest.”

I did as I was told, my back had barely touched the seat before I drifted into a fitful sleep. it didn't last long. I was startled awake to the sound of metal clanging. Bolting upright I saw that Steve, not Barton, was holding Fin on his lap and she was holding on to the front of him for dear life, pleading in quiet german as she cried.

[Father no, please, I want mother!]

_‘Vater nein, bitte. ich will Mama!’_

His shield was on the metal floor beneath us and he looked from it to me apologetically.

“Where’s Barton?” I picked it up, setting it on the empty seat between us as he answered.

“He came and got me. He said she wanted me to sit with her.” He brushed a stray hair from Fin's face, looking at her furrowed brow with concern.

“How long was I out?” I looked around, noticing we were no longer on the open air transport but in a room on a helicarrier. My eye’s met Barton’s across the room and I raised my eyebrow in question. 

“Maybe an hour? Two? Vision carried you, we wanted to let you rest.” Cap answered but I kept my eyes on Barton as he signed slowly for me to follow. _‘She said it would make him feel better if he could help._ ’ I nodded, thankful Fin had insisted I learn some ASL. Her muffled voice cut off those thoughts. 

[No no. Please don’t. I do not want to do that.]

_‘nein, nein. Bitte nicht. Ich möchte das nicht tun’_

“How long has this been going on?” I asked. He shrugged. 

“It's been off and on....i never thought that I would regret learning german…” his voice trailed off as hers broke in.

[ I do not want to be like you father, I do not want to kill anyone.]

_‘Ich will nicht wie du Vater sein, ich will niemanden töten.’_

“Anything different or just this?”

“At the beginning,” he looked down at her,” at first she was singing, some kind of lullaby...after that she screamed for her mother. It's been this ever since...pleading for it to stop.”

“Only once? Screaming, I mean.”

“No.” He shook his head and I saw the exhaustion on his face. “Twice. The second time she kept asking…’what are you doing, what’s happening, let me go’...but before...that scream was. Shit, Elena the first scream hurt, but the second. The second was agony.”

I put the pieces together the best i could. The death of her mother, the formula experiment, the so-called training that Schmidt put her through. She was reliving the traumatic events of her childhood, one moment at a time and I could only hope reliving it now, when her conscious couldn't fight it, would help her get past it when she woke up.

“How long until we are home?” I didn't have anything else to say, i couldn't help with this. 

“Hours yet I think."

“Take care of her?” I asked, leaning back in my seat and closing my eyes. I didn't need him to answer, I knew he would.

[Why? I thought you loved me, father, You let him hurt me, Why? To see if I would break?]

_'Warum? Ich dachte du liebst mich, Vater. Du lässt ihn mich verletzen. Warum? Um zu sehen, wie ich breche?’_

I tried not to think if the implications Fin’s words had, tried to block out the deeper meaning as sleep took me. 


	10. Fool

**[Fin - 17:36 May 12th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

_Fool - The sweeplings_

I woke up in my own bed, not the spare room in Tony’s tower. It was my room in Brooklyn, the room that used to be Coulson’s. I rolled onto my back and exhaled, keeping my eyes open and forcing myself to remember the childhood I had here, with him. He never wanted me to remember the things my biological father had done to me and now that I did, I couldn’t blame him, but those memories didn’t change the others that I had. Memories of Coulson telling me stories of heroes and adventure, telling me that I was safe, and would always be safe here. Aunt Peggy teaching me to make cookies in the kitchen and how to throw a right hook in the gym downstairs. Coulson tucking me in at night and making sure I never wanted for anything. 

I rolled onto my side planning to curl around my pillow and go back to sleep, as I pulled it toward me my hand brushed something cold on the mattress. I leaned forward, my hand resting on the smooth surface of the vibranium shield. My mind flashed to a night filled with fireworks, tears and asgardian mead. I smashed my face into the pillow. Two versions of Steve flashed in my mind simultaneously, one smiling at me and the other choking the life out of me. I tried to shake them apart, my conscious mind logically understanding that one was false, that he wouldn’t hurt me but in the pit of my stomach I knew my real fear is that I would hurt him.

Someone knocked at the bedroom door and I wiped the tears from my cheeks before sitting up. 

“Come in” My voice sounded hoarse and my throat felt scratchy. Elena cracked open the door, stepping in. She handed me a glass of water and I sipped it, it was cold and felt good going down. “Was I…” 

“Screaming bloody murder in your sleep? Sometimes. When you weren’t you were frantically speaking german. Cap says you sang in german too but I didn’t have the pleasure of witnessing that myself.” Elena spoke calmly, keeping her tone light and I knew she was trying to gauge where my head was. I didn’t blame her, I remembered the melt down I'd been having on the transport. I searched my new memories, when I didn’t respond she didn’t press, instead she sat on the edge of the bed and waited. Eventually I answered. 

“der wald steht schwarz und schweiget und aus den wiesen steiget der weiße nebel” I remembered, singing quietly to myself. “the forest stands black and silent, and from the meadows rises the fog...it’s a little dark for a lullaby, don’t you think?”

“It’s no cradle falling from a tree.” She smiled. “You have a visitor, if you’re up for it.”

She didn’t have to tell me who. 

“I don’t know if I can. It’s all still in there.” I wasn’t sure if I meant the trauma of my childhood or the memory of him hating me but I didn’t think the distinction mattered. Both were concerning.

“I’ll be right outside the door. I won’t let anything happen... to either of you.”

I nodded and she went to let him in. I took another deep breath and started a running mantra in the front of my mind. ‘He isn’t going to hurt you. It was a trick, a lie. He won’t hurt you.’ He walked into the room, flashing a shy half smile. 

“Thank you.” I tapped the shield. 

“You’re welcome.” He smiled again, a little more relaxed this time. “Anytime you need me to watch you sleep talk in german for several hours, I have experience now.”

“Was it that bad?” I felt my cheeks flush.

“I’m not going to lie, parts of it were pretty horrible. Like the screaming, and understanding what you were saying. Mostly it was not being able to do anything about it. “He sat on the edge of the bed where Elena had been. ”It wasn’t all bad though.”

“No?” I asked, leaning forward, the voice in the front of my mind continuing to reassure me that I wanted to be closer to him, not run from him.

“No.” He turned to face me all the way, one hand reaching up and brushing my cheek. I guessed that I'd missed a tear and felt my blush deepen. His hand was warm and the memory of him kissing me rose in my mind, it seemed like so long ago with everything that had been happening. His hand moved lower and brushed my neck, another memory flashed, this one newer and raw, the memory of his hand closing around my throat, the pressure building in my head as my lungs burned for air. I acted on instinct, swinging my arms into his, flipping him over me and face down into the bed, wrenching his arm behind him. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head as I let him go, moving away from him and backing up against the headboard.

“I’m sorry! I'm so sorry! I-”

“It’s alright.” He rolled onto his back, stretching his shoulder and I wondered if I'd dislocated it. I hadn’t held back. “I shouldn’t have...I should have let you have some space, I know.”

“No, I'm glad you’re here I just...That stupid little witch is still in my head.”

“So I probably shouldn’t mention that we’re trying to recruit her.” He said flatly.

“I’ll be happy about that later when I'm done thinking of all the ways I would like to murder her.” I grumbled. 

“Do you want to tell me?” He asked before quickly adding. “Not about the ways you could murder someone, I've seen your resume.”

“Yes...and no.” I sighed. 

“Does Elena know?” He asked. 

“No... and I think...If I can’t make myself say it I'll never get over it...I’m sure there is some psychological babble about how being comfortable enough to tell you about it, since it involves you, is the first step to getting over it but…”

“It’s hard.” He finished. “Sam keeps trying to get me to talk about it, so if you don’t feel up to it yet, I understand." 

“Come sit?” I moved over, motioning toward the spot beside me. He didn’t answer but complied, moving to sit beside me and lean against the headboard. I had a moment, wondering what Coulson would think about me having a boy in his bed with me but considering who it was I didn’t think he’d mind. I put my legs over his and pulled the shield over my knees, I felt his posture tense, unsure what I was doing. For some reason him being uncomfortable reassured me. I leaned against his chest, resting my head on his shoulder as he slid his arm cautiously behind my back and into a familiar position, his other hand moved idly on the shield. I imagined this was how we rode most of the way home and wished I had been awake so I could remember, although if I'd been awake I wouldn’t have let it happen.

I let out a shaky breath and he did too, I hadn’t noticed that he’d been holding his. I took his hand off the shield, holding it in both of mine as I spoke.. 

“I saw myself standing on a hill under a huge tree,” I kept my eyes on the shield, I could feel the lump in my throat and knew if I looked up at his face I wouldn't be able to continue. “I was in a white dress and you were walking toward me. I was happy to see you but you weren’t smiling. You looked...you weren’t angry, not really, you looked...hurt. The way you looked at me I knew it was my fault but I couldn’t figure out what I'd done.”

I stopped, I'd felt his posture change beside me and thought he might say something. Instead I heard a slow exhale as he waited for me to continue. 

“When you got closer I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but before I could say anything…” I steadied my mind, telling myself that what I'd seen wasn’t real, that right now was real and he wasn’t going to hurt me. I'd thrown him and pinned him and he hadn’t even defended himself. I was safe and even if I did somehow hurt him, Elena was right outside. Everything would be alright.

I kept telling myself that as I pulled his hand closer and held it against my throat, I needed to prove to the panic in my mind that the vision wasn’t real. I could feel him trying to keep his hand loose and in my control. I wondered if he could feel my pulse racing under his fingertips as I continued. 

“Before I could ask, you grabbed me by the throat and pinned me to the ground. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think and you kept telling me I had lied to you. You never said what about...I still don’t know...but I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see you angry with me and I gave up. I was letting you kill me because it thought...I thought that if you were doing it, I must have done something to deserve it. So, I just closed my eyes and waited...I didn’t want to fight you but when I opened my eyes again you had a knife in your throat and you were bleeding out. I'd done it, even though I hadn’t wanted to.”

We sat there, neither of us moving while I tried to find my voice again. He didn’t speak, he sat perfectly still. Waiting. 

“I keep wondering if there’s something I don’t know, something my father did to me that’s going to make me snap one day and turn against you.” I took a deep breath, not sure I was ready to admit the rest out loud but knowing I needed to say it to him. “At least I'll probably remember now...silver lining I guess.”

“I’d rather you not remember, if remembering is hurting you this much.” I didn’t have a response for that but I couldn’t argue that not remembering had been easier. He moved his hand from my neck to my cheek, turning me to face him. “You don’t have to tell me any of that if you don’t want to, Fin. I'm not going to hold it against you.”

“You say that but...it really felt like you would.” 

“I’ll keep saying it. I don’t care. If you want to tell me, tell me, but I don’t think for a second I'm entitled to any of it.” Now that I was looking at him I couldn't turn away. I'd made the number one mistake when dealing with Steven Grant Rogers in a high emotion situation, I'd made eye contact. The sincerity looking back at me, the concern, it made what I was about to say even harder. 

“I need you to think about something and answer me honestly, Steve. Are we...do you.” I shut my eyes, I couldn’t think with him looking at me like that. “We’ve had a lot getting between us and I need to know if you still want there to be an us. We keep trying to see where this goes but every time we try the world falls apart and If we are going to, there are things you do need to know, whether you think you do or not.” I kept my eyes closed, waiting for him to answer. He shifted a little and cleared his throat before answering. 

“I don't know if you've realized but, I don't give up very easily...and I would very much like there to be an us after all of this.”

“I would too. I really, really would but…” I felt him tense again. “I think all of us need some time. I...I’m tired of putting my life on hold for the job but the fact is, after everything I need to take a minute to...sort out all of the new stuff in my brain. And I know she got you, I saw your face...I think some time with your own head would be good for you too.”

“I’m fine.” He insisted, but I saw the circles under his eyes, heard the hollowness in his words. 

“You know, in woman language that means you are definitely not fine” He made a noncommittal grunt. ”When’s the last time you weren’t worried about everyone else? About shield? Hydra? Bucky? After what just happened I don’t think the avengers will be running out to save the world for a little while. We all need to...reevaluate. Get our own shit together, figure out what the hell we’re meant to be doing.” I met his eyes and they broke my heart, but it only confirmed everything I was saying. Sokovia shook all of us. “A little time, that’s all I'm asking for.”

“Time.” he shook his head. “I think I can do it.” He whispered, squeezing my shoulder. 

**[Elena - 17:52 EDT May 12th, 2015 - BROOKLYN]**

_Next to you - Of Rust and Bone_

Once I was sure Fin and Steve weren’t going to kill each other, not that I'd ever really thought that was going to happen, I made my way to the stairs. Most of the time when someone opened this door they were headed down, to the gym, but I was going up. The hangar was rarely used without Lola and we’d discovered the hard way that the door was barely large enough for one of the stealth quinjets. It wasn’t a parking job I wanted to repeat anytime soon, which is why I'd thought it was safe enough for James to hide out up there. 

He’d taken me up on the offer to stay at the house while we were gone, which was fine, but with all the commotion I'd forgotten to warn him we were coming home. I had to think of something fast and the short notice wasn’t exactly conducive to getting to another safe place. I knew that he’d be leaving soon and that I was supposed to be helping with that so it only made sense for him to stay close by...I’d just lie to myself about the selfish reasons for him to be there. I lucked out with Steve being too preoccupied with an unconscious Fin to notice a couple dishes in the sink, despite no one having been home in months. The two of them had enough shit going on without wondering if there was a squatter. 

“James?” I whispered, It was dark in the hangar, there weren’t any windows and the only lights were the small lines recessed into the floor, marking the runway. He stepped out of the shadows and stood in the dim light. 

“Elena.” It was the closest I'd been to him since the incident at the Triskelion and hearing him say my name sent goosebumps up my spine. “Is everything okay? I heard screaming…”

“Yeah it…” I started to say everything was fine, but it wasn’t. “It will be, I think. We didn’t get out of this one unscathed.”

“What happened?” He asked, sincerely. He knew how it started, I'd filled him in the best I could when we left for Sokovia to go after Ultron, but I left out some details. 

“We beat Ultron and his minions but he rigged the game. A lot of people still died so it’s hard to feel like we won.”

“Anyone you knew?” His expression didn’t give me any insight into whether or not he was specifically asking about Steve, but that was the only person we both knew so I assumed. 

“One, I didn’t know him well. Ultron had two enhanced helping him, kids really. When they realized what Ultron was really trying to do they switched sides, fought with us. The boy didn’t make it.”

“And the other one?” 

“She’s alive, and probably sticking around.”

“Was that her? Screaming, I mean?” 

“No, no… That was Fin.” I tried to think of how to explain the mind fuckery that Wanda had used against us and realized James might be one of the few who could understand someone 

playing around in their minds. “Before switching sides the twins hit us, hard. The girl has some mind altering powers that she used to get in our heads. She showed us things from our past that would hurt us and things we worry about happening in the future.”

“What did she show you?” 

“A lot of things.” I smiled but didn’t say more. He didn’t ask me to elaborate, understanding that my answer had told him everything I was willing to share. 

“Why are you alright then? When your friend isn’t?” 

“Fin has a lot of past that she doesn’t...didn’t” I corrected. “remember until now. I think she’d having trouble deciding what it all means”

“Can you help her?” He sounded genuinely concerned and I realized that he probably understood what she was dealing with better than most. 

“Yes, but I'm helping you first. If you still want my help, that is.” 

I went over the plan with him, where he’d be going and who would be taking him. Luckily the favors I'd earned in Wakanda had somehow not run out and I'd arranged transport on one of the few trade ships they governed. It would harbor in Dakar where he could catch a train and disappear. Barton said he owed me one and I hoped me asking for him to use some resources to forge travel papers and identification documents wouldn’t raise any flags. I hadn’t wanted to include anyone else in this operation but my forging skills were non-existent, S.H.I.E.L.D. always handled things like that and that wasn’t an option. I answered all of James’s questions, taking some of his suggestions into consideration regarding where I may have overlooked details. When I heard Steve and Fin saying their goodbyes I excused myself, promising to bring him food when I got a moment. 

I met Steve in the hall standing outside Fin’s bedroom, the door was closed and he was just standing there looking at it. His eyes were red, he looked like he’d been crying and I immediately regretted not listening to whatever conversation my friends had been having. I wasn’t usually one for eavesdropping but with Fin’s questionable mental state there was no telling what she’d said. 

“Are you going to be alright?” I said it quietly, part of me hoping he didn’t hear. He nodded in response, finally looking up at me. “What did she say?”

“She asked me to give her time.” He exhaled, shoulders slumping. ”She thinks knowing what happened to her has changed her somehow.”

“Hasn’t it?” I asked. I wasn’t sure to what extent, but knowing the trauma you’ve been through has to make you different than the person without the same knowledge. “I don’t think it will change who she is in the grand scheme of things but it has to be...different.” I tried to reassure him. 

“It’s always been a part of who she is. I didn’t care before and I don’t care now, I just don’t understand how to make her see that nothing’s changed.”

“Maybe nothing’s changed for you, but for her? It’s all changed for her.” I closed the gap between us and laid a hand on his arm to try and comfort him. “She’s remembering what she was capable of before she had Coulson and Peggy showing her that the world wasn’t all fighting for your life. She’s worried she’ll hurt you.”

“It’s too late for that.” On instinct I looked him over for injuries, realizing he’d been speaking metaphorically when I didn’t see blood. I only let myself feel stupid about it for a second, knowing them either outcome was an equal likelihood. 

“It’s just for a little while.” I hoped I was right, I didn’t know how long I could handle Fin having an identity crisis. Coulson and Peggy had only gotten her past the guilt she felt for being Redskull’s daughter by showing her she could do good in spite of him. When S.H.I.E.L.D. Had proven to be controlled by Hydra she’d started to spiral again but having Captain America himself tell her it would be alright had kept her head above water. Now she was remembering exactly the kind of monster he’d wanted her to be and it had to be tearing her up inside. 

“I don’t know.” He looked at his phone, it had a message from Tony but he didn’t read it. “She asked me not to call, not to check up on her.”

“You know you can call me, I'll let you know how she's doing. And if you don’t, I'll update you anyway.” I smiled. I'd spent too much time dealing with their ‘we don’t have feelings’ bullshit to let them fall apart this easily. “In the meantime, we all deserve a break. Don’t you think?”

* * *

**[Steve - 23:35 May 23th, 2015 - AVENGERS COMPOUND]**

I had mixed feelings when I saw the compound for the first time, I knew it had been a project of Tony’s and I was happy to see he hadn’t given up on the Avengers after our fight with Ultron. I was also glad for a place to stay that wasn’t in the tower, especially with the remodeling the rogue iron legion drones had prompted. On the other hand, I was left with the responsibility of running things, sure Fury was around but he’d been very clear that he was not in charge. Tony had decided to take a step back and reevaluate some things, which was good for him, but he’d already had agent Hill recruiting to fill the ranks here. I didn’t want to lead an army, I wasn’t sure what I wanted but I knew I wasn’t being given the time I needed to think on it either. 

I had been glad when Thor had chosen to stick around for a while, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to make sure we were alright or if he needed time as much as the rest of us but it was good to have an extra set of hands to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately he’d decided he’d overstayed his welcome. Tony had driven out to see him off and while the discussion had started with the mind stone it soon turned to Mjolnir and worthiness. 

“If he can wield the hammer, he can keep the Mind Stone. It’s safe with the Vision and these days, safe is in short supply.” Thor grinned after Tony and I went back and forth at length about Vision being a machine and being held to a different set of rules by the hammer. 

“But if you put the hammer in an elevator…” I hadn’t meant it to be out loud, but it was. 

“It would still go up.” Tony realized where I was going. 

“Elevator’s not worthy.” I shook my head. 

“I’m going to miss these little talks of ours.” Thor chuckled. 

“Well, not if you don’t leave.” Tony offered. 

“I have no choice, The mind stone is the fourth of the infinity stones to show up in the last few years, that’s not a coincidence. Someone has been playing an intricate game and has made pawns of us. But once all these pieces are in position…” Thor started to go on and Tony couldn’t take it anymore, he avoided the conversation turning serious like he usually did. 

“Triple Yahtzee?” He joked. 

“You think you can find out what’s coming?” As usual I had to ask the real question. 

“I do. Besides this one. “ He slapped Tony on the chest. “there’s nothing that can’t be explained.” With a nod he lifted the hammer. The array of lights he called the bi-frost surrounded him before he disappeared, leaving nothing but a burnt circle in the immaculate grass. 

“That man has no regard for lawn maintenance. I'm going to miss him though.” We started walking to the expensive sports car Tony had driven here. “And you’re gonna miss me. There's gonna be a lot of manful tears.”  
  


“I will miss you, Tony.” I admitted as he pushed a button and the car rolled up to meet us.

  
“Yeah? Well, it's time for me to tap out. Maybe I should take a page out of Barton's book and build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up.”   
  


“The simple life.” I couldn’t see Tony living anywhere other than his fancy high rise but maybe Pepper was the one he’d give it up for. Who knows. 

  
“You'll get there one day.” He hadn’t asked about me and Fin, but he knew we were taking some time apart. I wasn’t sure if he meant she and I specifically would get there or if it was Tony’s way of telling me I had options but I couldn’t stop the thoughts that ran through my head. Did Fin even want the quiet life? Settling down, having kids? Did I? I couldn't picture it. 

“I don't know, family, stability. The guy who wanted all that went in the ice seventy-five years ago. I think someone else came out.” He didn’t say anything, just turned to get in his car. He stopped and looked back at me, a rare expression of concern on his face. 

“You alright?” I hadn’t expected him to ask. The truth was, I wasn’t, not really. But there wasn’t anything Tony could do about it.   
  


“I'm home.” I looked at the compound, soldiers marching and chanting. It was the most familiar thing I had here and it should have bothered me. _‘God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war’._ Ultron’s words echoed in my head. Was he right? Was I even capable of a life without a purpose to fight for? I was more at peace here than I had been in Tony’s tower but that wasn’t exactly a normal life. I thought about Fin and sitting in bed with her at the Sunset park house. 

_“We can go home, imagine it”_ The words that had been haunting me since Wanda had gotten into my head went along with the image, but this time it was Fin’s voice instead of Peggy’s. 

Peggy. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind before, I'd tried to keep my relationships with Fin as a separate entity from Peggy, but Peggy might know. Peggy found Fin, helped raise her, she might know what Fin is dealing with and I could…

No. I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. I couldn’t. I told Fin I'd let her handle this on her own terms and me going behind her back to get information from Peggy about things Fin didn’t want me to know would be a violation of trust. I wouldn’t do that to her, to either of them.

  
  


**[Elena - 23:47 May 23th, 2015 - AVENGERS COMPOUND]**

The new place was nice, very...Tony. I'd shown myself around for a bit, passing Thor on his way out. He thanked me for my assistance with the norns and we said our goodbyes. Eventually I ran into Sam and found myself relieved I'd run into him before Steve. 

“Hey, How are you settling in here?” I walked over to lean on the counter beside him. He leaned over to give me a one armed hug before answering. 

“It’s good. Kinda like the tower; same tech, same decor...less tall.” He laughed. “I’ve had a little longer to settle in that most, I should have been with you guys.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure it would have helped.”

“That’s what Steve said too. You just missed him and Tony, by the way.” he gestured outside, Thor, Tony and Steve were walking and talking. 

“Sam, I can’t find…” Wanda let her sentence drift off when she saw me standing next to him. She looked at me like a deer waiting to see if the predator was hungry. 

“You’re staying?” I hadn’t meant anything by the question but she immediately got defensive. 

“Is that a problem?” 

“No, I'm glad. We can use all the help we can get around here.” After seeing what she could do, I was happy to have her on our side. 

“I don’t think your friend will agree.” She looked around, presumably to see if Fin was behind me.

“She isn't here. You really did a number on her.”

“I did nothing more to her than I did to you.” The defensive tone was back, this girl would need to get that chip off her shoulder if she planned to hang around. 

“Maybe not intentionally but, you opened a door that she’d locked a long time ago. She wasn’t ready for what was behind it.” I tried to keep my voice level and not argumentative, not wanting to fuel her assumption that any of us could be against her. She uncrossed her arms and exhaled before speaking again. 

“Does she really have that much to be afraid of? What could be so terrible…”

“Herself mostly.” I answered, there wasn’t a better explanation. 

“Isn’t that everyone’s biggest monster? The things they are capable of?” She looked at her own hands before the doors at the top of the steps flung open.

“AVENGERS!” Steve yelled, getting everyone’s attention as he walked in, cutting the conversation short. We all stopped to look at him. He gave a quick speech about teamwork and leaving the past in the past...I wasn’t really paying as much attention as I should have been and when he finished I let him talk to everyone else before cornering him. I hadn’t wanted to throw him off his leadership game. 

“Hey Cap.” I smiled as I greeted him. “Tony told me about the new set up, thought I would come check it out.”

“You just missed him”

“I saw, you want to give me the tour instead?”

“Why not.” He sounded tired and I wasn’t sure anyone else would notice the circles starting under his eyes. We walked through the first couple rooms in silence before I couldn't take it anymore. 

“I can’t get her to talk to me.” I didn’t have to say who and I knew he wanted to ask. “I don’t know if she’s getting better or worse or if it’s all the same...i know she’s still having nightmares. I can hear her through the walls.”

“Why are you telling me?” He didn’t mean it the way he’d said it, at least I didn’t think he’d meant to sound like an uncaring asshole. 

“Because I hear her calling for you. I don’t know why she’s insisting that she get through this on her own, but she is and that’s her choice.” 

“She isn’t the only one with a past, I know it’s a lot for her to deal with at once but sitting in her room and letting it haunt her isn’t going to get her anywhere. We all got hit with something, we all know it sucks, but we aren’t facing it alone.”

“And that’s your choice.” I shrugged, waiting a moment before trying to lighten the mood. “So, you have a mindgames support group I wasn’t invited to?”

“Yeah, we meet the second Tuesday of every week.” I caught the half smirk that tugged at his mouth. “But really, Sam’s been great. He’s been checking in on all of us around here.”

“I should think about taking him up on that sometime. Although I'm not sure having him psychoanalyze my shit will give me any more insight that I already have.” 

“Maybe, but it helps to say it out loud.”

“I wouldn’t know.” I hadn’t talked about it, I'd normally talk to Fin but she had enough going on. He stopped walking, turning to look up and down the hallway. He put a hand on my back and steered me into a room that was laid out like a lounge, the seating was inset into the floor and all the furniture looked over stuffed and soft. He gestured to the chairs, I sat in the one nearest me and he took the one across the table. 

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” 

We talked for a couple hours, trading stories and discussing them after. Having an outside perspective was less terrifying than I'd anticipated, although I had left out the part about James. I still wasn’t sure how much to tell Steve when it came to that particular mutual acquaintance and was afraid if I started on the topic I wouldn’t be able to hide the truth.

I hugged him before I left and both of us held on longer than we normally would have, we both needed it. The drive home felt long but it gave me time to think. By the time I got home I'd rehearsed a speech in my head to convince Fin to come to the compound and talk to Sam. He had experience with ptsd, he knew how to talk to people and keep it from feeling too serious and he knew her well enough to not push too hard. I was mad I hadn’t thought of him before now. 

I started to walk into Fin’s room, it was late but she hadn’t been sleeping lately so on the off chance she was up I wanted to talk to her while the arguments were fresh in my mind. I heard her talking in her sleep as I approached and I opened the door cautiously. When the light from the hall hit her face she rolled out of bed and onto her feet, taking a defensive stance and holding the knife that was usually in her nightstand. 

“Fin?” I whispered. She shook her head, her hair falling in her face and obscuring it but I could tell she was still asleep. I took a slow step forward and she started speaking.

“Bleib weg, bitte. Ich will dich nicht verletzen. es wird du oder ich sein. Er wird mich dazu bringen, dich zu töten.” her voice was quiet and scared and I barely recognized as Fin.

“It’s okay. Es ist in Ordnung.” I tried to reason with her but she wasn’t responding, I tried to get close enough to take the knife from her before she hurt herself but she moved first. She moved quickly, despite seeming unsteady on her feet, and she barely missed me with the blade. When I moved back she didn’t retreat like I'd expected, when we fought she usually stepped back and took a more reserved tactic but now she lunged forward. I fell back onto the bed and she landed on top of me, trying to bring the knife down on my chest. I threw my hands up, crossing them at the wrist and holding her off of me. “Fin. Come on!” I tried to throw her off but I couldn’t get the leverage I needed. When we shifted I saw her cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes were open wide in a look of unfocused panic. I had to get her to drop the knife but attacking her was only going to make her feel more threatened and I didn’t want to hurt her. If she was awake that was one thing but if she thought she was somewhere else, somewhere she thought she was fighting for her life...I didn’t want to see the lengths that Fin might go to in order to survive. 

I closed my eyes, trying to relax enough for what I was trying to do while keeping the knife away from my face. I moved my head to the left as I twisted my wrists to the right and let my elbows collapse, sending the blade plunging into the mattress. I rolled off the bed as she tried to free it from the sliced fabric and I felt my bones shift and pop. The popping made her hesitate, some part of her brain recognizing the sound but unable to place it in her current state of mind. I watched her pull the knife from the bed and stand barefoot on the wood floor, her stance looked relaxed to the untrained eye but I'd seen it before. She was ready for an attack. I lowered my head, swishing my tail side to side as I whined. 

Her head cocked to one side as her expression turned to confusion and the knife clattered to the floor. 

“Puppy?” She whispered in english. “Come here puppy.” She crawled onto the bed and under the covers, patting the mattress beside her. I jumped onto the bed, laying beside her and watching as she reached out a cautious hand before petting me on the top of my head. “Shhh. it’s okay puppy. I won’t let them hurt us.”


End file.
